The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive Skills on Students, Achievement Motivation and Reading Comprehension

Metacognitions are one of the newest constructs in educational psychology, and have considerably been investigated by many educational researchers. The aim of the present research was to determine whether teaching metacognitive skills can improve the students, achievement motivation and reading comprehension.The research method was quasi experimental, with pre- and post-test assessments. Two classes were selected randomly from the 2nd grade majoring in Humanities at high school in Esfarayen during the academic year of 2011. One class was randomly assigned to experimental group (N = 32; Mean age = 16.4; SD= 1.2) and the other one to control group (N = 30; Mean age = 16.6; SD = 1.1). Measures included Edwards Achievement Motivations Questionnaire (α = 0.81) and a researcher compiled test for reading comprehension (α=0.82). During 15 training sessions, the participants learned about 5 areas of metacognitive skills (i.e., aim, planning, control, evaluation, and mistakes correction). For data analysis, ANCOVA models were used.
The results showed that learning about the metacognitive skills had a positive effect on the students’ achievement motivation and reading comprehension. The findings suggested that teachers can learn about and use the metacognitive skills in order to enhance their students’ achievement motivation and learning outcomes.