Metacognition and Teacher Education: A Literature Review

Abstract

This article presents and analyzes the main findings of research on metacognition published nationwide to discuss the relevance and contributions of this construct to teacher education. To this end, we conducted a literature review based on secondary studies supported by the software StArt. Eleven works selected from three databases met the established criteria: SciELO, Periódicos Capes portal, and Google Scholar. In the first analytical movement, the selected studies were organized and discussed according to four categories raised from reading and analysis of the works: metacognition in broad contexts, learning strategies and their impacts, metacognition in science and mathematics teaching, and metacognition in the teaching and learning of specific subjects. The studies indicate that metacognition potentiates learning mainly by improving cognitive and motivational activity. It also reveals that efficient learners in academic tasks have well-developed metacognitive skills and that teaching strategies can encourage learning strategies. In the second analytical movement, fundamental points raised in the first movement were taken up and deepened. The discussed results were compared with the findings of other studies that sought similar objectives to answer three questions: (1) Wouldn’t the metacognitive capacity be natural in human beings, no intervention needed? (2) Is it possible to improve and strengthen metacognition through interventions? (3) How is teacher education characterized from the perspective of metacognition? Finally, from the perspective of metacognition, we argue that teacher education has two fundamental characteristics, summarized in the expressions: “teach to learn to learn” and “learn to learn to learn to teach”.

Keywords: Metacognition. Learning Strategies. Teacher Education. Literature Review.