Cognitive and Metacognitive Prompts
This week, we held our first Course Design Studio which includes a discussion of student reflection. So I would like to share a 2007 article entitled "Do learning protocols support learning strategies and outcomes? The role of cognitive and metacognitive prompts" by Berthold, Nückles and Renkl.
In this study, the authors analyze the effects of different types of prompts (questions or hints that induce productive learning processes) using with four conditions: cognitive prompts, metacognitive prompts, a combination of cognitive and metacognitive prompts, or no prompts with 84 undergraduate psychology students. They found that the prompts stimulated the elicitation of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies. Metacognitive prompts alone did not improve learning outcomes. Only groups who had received cognitive, or a combination of cognitive ((i.e., organization and elaboration) and metacognitive, (i.e., monitoring) prompts learned more.
The authors operationalize "learning protocol" as a writing assignment to be performed as a follow-up course work activity. Learners write their reflection from material shared in class - ideally an opportunity to engage in planning, drafting, and revising.
Cognitive learning processes include organization and elaboration strategies, which enable a deeper comprehension. Useful elaboration strategies help to construct ‘‘external’’ links that relate new material to learner’s prior knowledge (Mayer, 1984). Whereas metacognition refers to the knowledge and awareness of one’s own cognitive processes and the ability to actively manage those processes (Flavell, 1976). The elicitation of metacognitive strategies during the production of a learning protocol can help to prevent illusions of understanding (Chi et al., 1989).
The authors remind us that prompts are designed to overcome superficial processing (King, 1992) as strategy activators (Reigeluth & Stein, 1983) because they induce learning strategies that the learners are capable of, but do not spontaneously demonstrate. For this study cognitive prompts included:
- How can you best organize the structure of the learning contents?
- Which headings & subheadings enable you to arrange the learning contents in a logical order?
- Which examples can you think of that illustrate, confirm, or conflict with the learning contents?
Metacognitive prompts were:
- Which main points haven’t I understood yet?
- How can I best explain my comprehension problem?
- What possibilities do I have to overcome my comprehension problems?
