BECE. Newsletter 

Vol.16, No.2, 2024, BECE 1839 

 

 

 

 

The Effects of Metacognitive Teaching on Student 

Academic Performance: A Meta-analysis of Relevant 

Experimental and Quasi-experimental Studies over 

the Past 20 Years 

By Shi, L., Cheng, C.K. Eric, Zheng, X., & Liu, D. 
Correspondence to: Lan Shi, South China Normal University, China. E-mail: 

Shilan.shilan@163.com  

HE ability to “learn to how to learn,” by common consent, is one of the 

key competences that students need to succeed in the 21st century. The 

concept of metacognition, viewed as central to this ability, was first ad-

vanced by Flavell, a cognitive psychologist, to denote the individual’s 

knowledge and understanding of cognitive processes. It is a higher-order 

thinking ability, involving the learner’s active control of cognitive processes 

as well use of metacognitive support to plan and adjust learning. Metacogni-

tive teaching is a pedagogy that requires the teacher to guide students to con-

template on their learning process and actively solve problems. It is also a 

practical instructional framework that consists of students, teachers, meta-

cognitive teaching strategies, and the learning environment. This study ex-

plores the impact of metacognitive teaching on student academic perfor-

mance and related moderating variables using the meta-analytic technique. It 

aims to provide valuable insights to educators for their appropriate and flexi-

ble adoption of metacognitive teaching in education and to contribute to the 

advancement of the key competence-focused curriculum reform. 

The analysis results show that: 

 Metacognitive teaching has a significantly positive impact on stu-

dent academic performance. It effectively improves students’ 

thinking ability and academic achievement by emphasizing their 

self-reflection in the process of problem solving, thus enhancing 

the value of the instructional system at large. 

 The moderating effects of teaching strategies, learning phases, 

and subjects on the relation between the metacognitive teaching 

and student academic performance are significant, whereas those 

of student learning ability and teaching durations are not. The use 

of teaching assessment that combines PME (plan, monitoring, and 

evaluation) and metacognitive knowledge can most effectively 

boost student academic performance. 

T 

mailto:Shilan.shilan@163.com


 

Vol.16, No.2, 2024, BECE 1840 

The study proposes recommendations on metacognitive teaching as fol-

lows: 

i. Encourage reflective analysis and the development of thinking pat-

terns in students; create teaching scenarios that facilitate knowledge 

transfer. 

ii. Use multiple metacognitive teaching strategies to support students 

enhancing planning and metacognitive knowledge and establishing 

integrated knowledge and skill structure. 

iii. Develop individualized and stratified metacognitive teaching models 

to heighten the matching of teaching and learning. 

iv. Set legitimate teaching durations and encourage interdisciplinary 

learning. 

v. Create teaching design from the developmental perspective; assist 

students in developing into self-directed metacognitive learners. 

 

 
Source: Research in Educational Research, 2023; 43(18):45-52.