







































Putri Anggraeni, et al / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

150 

 
ELT FORUM 9 (2) (2020) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

 
http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 
 

Undergraduates’ use of metacognitive strategies in a PBL writing process 
 

Muhammad Mukhtar Aliyu1, Yong Mei Fung2 

 
1Bauchi State University, Gadau-Nigeria 
2Unversiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia 

 

Article Info 
________________  
Article History: 

Received in 11 

September 2020  
Approved in 29 

November 2020 

Published in 30 

November 2020 

________________  
Keywords: metacognitive 
strategies; Nigeria; PBL; 
undergraduates; writing  
____________________ 

 

 
 

 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________ 
This study examines the use of metacognitive strategies in undergraduates’ PBL 

writing process. The participants of the study are 18 second-year undergraduates in 
an intact class of Advanced Composition in a university in North-eastern Nigeria. 

Data for the study were collected through audio and video recordings of the 
participants’ interactions in the PBL process. The findings of the study showed the 

PBL allowed the participants to effectively use metacognitive strategies: planning, 

monitoring and evaluation in various ways to achieve their writing goals.  For the 
planning process, the participants made an overall plan of their writing process, 

generated various ideas, retrieved their rhetorical and linguistic knowledge, and 
made decisions on what and how to present ideas in their writing. For monitoring, 

they kept track of the transition of ideas and paragraphs in their writing and identify 
and remedy problems that affect the writing progress. For evaluation, they evaluated 

the content, organisation, and language of their writing. The paper makes some 

recommendations for teachers to assist students in the use of metacognitive 
strategies which eventually improve their writing skills.   

 

 

 

© 2020 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

  


 Correspondent Address: p-ISSN 2252-6706 | e-ISSN 2721-4532 
Department of English and Literary Studies,  

Bauchi State University, Gadau-Nigeria   

E-mail: mmamukhtar@basug.ed.ng   

http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&&
http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&&
mailto:mmamukhtar@basug.ed.ng


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151 

INTRODUCTION 

Undergraduates’ writing challenges have been documented by numerous studies. Many strategies 

and approaches have also been proposed to develop the students’ writing performance (Mu, 2005). 

Some of the strategies that are believed to be useful in developing students’ writing performance are 

metacognitive strategies which enable a writer to regulate their knowledge of the writing process and 

the different demands of different writing genres (Wong, 1999). 

In the writing process, metacognitive strategies are mental procedures used by writers to 

regulate their writing through planning, monitoring and evaluating (Wenden, 1991; Wong, 1999). 

The strategies play an important role in the development of students’ writing skills (Mu, 2005; 

Victori, 1999; Wong, 2005); they distinguish successful from less successful writers. Various 

researchers identified the three main metacognitive strategies which writers use in their writing: 

planning, monitoring and evaluation (Mu, 2007; Riazi, 1997; Wenden, 1991; Wong, 1999). 

Planning involves accessing and retrieving knowledge relevant to a task and making decisions 

about what to write and how to write (Wenden, 1991). Wenden identifies three types of task 

knowledge writers need to retrieve to effectively plan their writing. They are: a) world knowledge 

which is the participants’ general knowledge and opinion about the topic; b) rhetorical knowledge 

which is the knowledge of organising ideas and paragraphs in writing, c) and linguistics knowledge 

which is the knowledge of grammar and appropriate vocabulary needed to present the ideas in the 

writing.  

In the writing process, Wenden (1991) defines monitoring as a process of overseeing the 

whole writing process while observing when and why it is being hindered from progress. While she 

defines evaluation in writing as the process of determining the quality of a written product by 

looking back to determine the need for revision and making necessary changes. Wenden mentions 

three types of task knowledge that are necessary for evaluation: i) message knowledge, ii) rhetorical 

knowledge and iii) linguistic knowledge. Message knowledge is the understanding of what a writer 

wants to say about a topic based on his/her world knowledge. It allows a writer to see a connection 

between his/her intent and the written product. Rhetorical knowledge is the knowledge of logical 

organisation and presentation of ideas in the writing. It helps a writer in evaluating the 

appropriateness and adequacy of the arrangement of ideas in the written product. Linguistic 

knowledge includes knowledge of language structure, vocabulary, punctuation and spelling, which 

allows a writer to correct his/her language-related mistakes. 

Many studies show that effective writers use metacognitive strategies which enable them to 

become successful and better writers. Wei, Shang and Briody, (2012) found that high-level writers 

employ metacognitive skills more effectively in their writing process, especially during planning 

reviewing, than low-level ones. For example, the high-level writers generate and organise complete 

ideas during the planning stage and they are more concerned with the needs of their audience and 

the demands of specific genres. Rahimi and Katal’s (2011) study also showed the relationship 

between awareness of metacognitive strategies and successful language learning. They observed that 

metacognitive learners who take conscious steps to understand what they are doing when they learn 

to tend to be the most successful learners. 

Despite the strong positive relationship between the use of metacognitive strategies and 

students’ writing performance, there seems to be a lack of studies that employ approaches that give 

students ideal contexts, explicit instructions, collaboration, scaffolding and sufficient time to fully 

utilise the strategies in their writing process. Therefore, this study adopts a Problem-based Learning 

approach (PBL) to investigate the use of metacognitive strategies in the writing process. In the PBL 

approach, students are given an ill-structured problem which is complex and related to their real-life 

situation, which also requires multiple answers. They are allowed to work collaboratively in small 

groups and in sessions, which allows them to easily master what they learn in every session. 

Teachers on their parts facilitate the students’ learning by explaining their roles and those of the 

students’ and through metacognitive questioning to effectively use the metacognitive strategies for 

improved performance in the students’ writing (Lim, 2012). The study is aimed at answering the 

following research question: How do the participants use metacognitive strategies in the PBL writing 

process? 

 

 

 

 

 



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152 

METHODS 

Respondents 

The participants of the study are 18 second-year students taking Advanced English composition 

course in a local university in Nigeria. They are of mixed-gender with ages ranging from 24-36 years 

old. They were selected based on purposeful sampling. Audio-video recording was the main 

instrument used for the data collection. The participants’ interactions during the PBL process were 

recorded and transcribed verbatim. 

. 

Data collection procedures 

To conduct the research, permission was obtained from the Department and every participant signed 

an informed consent form to give their consent. Before the actual study, the participants were briefed 

on the concepts of PBL and metacognition. Rehearsal and demonstration on how to carry out the 

PBL process was conducted.  

Two ill-structured problems were given to the participants: the first one is on attacks and 

abductions of some university students by some terrorist groups in the Northern part of Nigeria 

which put fear in some parents and students. The second ill-structured problem is about students’ 

poor academic performance and study attitudes as a result of excessive engagement with social 

media (see Appendix). 

The participants were asked to work in small groups and propose viable solutions to the 

problems in two PBL cycles following Savery and Duffy’s (1995) model. In each PBL cycle, the 

participants worked on one ill-structured problem for three weeks, one session per week for two 

hours. 

The model presents the systematic process as follows: The facilitators identified and designed 

relevant ill-structured problems and presented to the participants. They also grouped the participants 

into smaller groups and asked each group to work collaboratively to generate working ideas, identify 

available information related to the problem; identify learning issues (things about which they need 

to find out more information); identify resources to look up or consult; assign tasks to each group 

member (i.e. who will be responsible for working on each learning issue) to gather information 

(conduct self-directed learning), and finally propose viable solutions.  

In the first session, the participants planned how to write viable solutions with the help of a 

tutor. They followed the PBL steps 1 to 5 to brainstorm and organise the viable solutions to the ill-

structured problem. They read the ill-structured problems, generated possible causes, solutions and 

other information related to the problems. The participants also identified things they should know 

more about to solve the problems (learning issues), and resources to consult to obtain the 

information through self-directed learning. In the second session, the participants exchanged 

findings of their self-study with group members. Thereafter, the participants drafted their proposed 

solutions. During the third session, the participants reviewed what was written in the previous 

session. They read and reread words, sentences and paragraphs of the drafts and made corrections. 

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

To answer the research question of the study, (how do the participants use metacognitive strategies 

in the PBL writing process), the participants’ interactions during the PBL sessions were recorded and 

transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were coded following Wenden’s (1991) model on the use of 

metacognitive strategies: planning, monitoring and evaluation in the writing process. What the 

participants did while using each of the strategies are categorised and presented in episodes and 

supported with the excerpt from their interactions. An episode is defined by Nelson and Carson 

(1998) as any utterance that is semantically related in topic or purpose. 

The episodes occurred in all the three sessions: planning, drafting and reviewing as the use of 

metacognitive strategies in the writing process was not linear but cyclical. For instance, while 

generating ideas, the participants might also plan, monitor and evaluate the process. Also, while 

drafting or reviewing their writing, participants referred to the planning to check for the consistency 

between what was planned and what was written. The following sections present the episode in all 

the metacognitive strategies, planning, monitoring and evaluation.  

 

Planning in Writing 

During planning, the participants retrieved their prior knowledge on the ill-structured problems, 

brainstormed the possible causes and solutions to the ill-structured problems. Following the retrieval 



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of knowledge, they made decisions regarding what to include in the writing and how to write. They 

also retrieved and decided on their rhetorical and linguistic knowledge. 

Four episodes emerged from the participants’ interactions during planning: a) instruction-

related episode, b) idea generation episode, c) organisation-related episode and d) language-related 

episode. The names of the episodes are adopted from previous studies. The instruction related 

episode and the organisation-related episode were modified from Amirkhiz (2013). The idea-

generation episode and the language-related episode are adopted from Swain and Lapkin (1998). 

The following sections explain the episodes. 

 

Instruction-related Episode 

Amirkhiz (2013) describes instances where learners discuss writing topic and instructions as ‘reading 

the topic and task instructions’. In the current study, Instruction-related episode occurred when the 

participants initiated their writing activities in a session. It involved reading the ill-structured 

problems, reading or giving instructions on how to carry out the PBL process.  

It also included announcing a specific writing task or goal to undertake at a time. In the 

instruction-related episodes, the participants made the overall planning of the activities. This allowed 

them to focus on what exactly they were expected to do in a session. It helped them to better 

understand the writing topic and set goals about the task. It also allowed them to think and decide 

on how to accomplish the task and what to include in the writing. It was through the reading 

instruction and setting guidelines that participants worked out strategies that assisted them through 

the writing process. This is illustrated in Excerpt 1. The episode occurred when the participants 

initiated their discussion of the ill-structured problem of terrorism in Northern Nigeria. They 

discussed how to plan the whole PBL processes. 

 

Excerpt 1 

Yunus: Now… we have an ill-structured problem. We are going to brainstorm about and see 

if we can come with possible solutions to it. When we finish everything we are going to 

write a composition on this problem. As a chair, let me remind you something. In this 

group the chair will control the discussions, the secretary will write our points. While 

we are discussing, we will identify possible causes and solutions, and study issues or 

learning issues and possible actions. 

Ummi:  [[Ok 

Amina:  [[Ok 

Yunus: So now, I will begin with reading the problem. Our ill-structured problem is this, and 

everyone should listen to it attentively. If you have any question regarding it, you ask 

and it gets explained… Any question regarding the understanding of the problem? 

Ishaq:  Actually, no… as far as I’m concerned 

Yunus: Very straight forward? = 

Ishaq: Yeah. = 

 

Yunus who was the Group 1 leader, suggested that they should brainstorm the possible 

causes and solutions to the ill-structured problem. He began by giving an overview of the process 

and giving instruction on how to carry out the activities. He then reminded his group members on 

how the PBL process should be conducted and what they were expected to do. He read out the ill-

structured problem to the group members and asked if there was anything in need of clarification. 

Other participants responded positively. By following PBL, it helped to increase the participants’ 

metacognitive awareness, as they became more aware of the need to plan to achieve their writing 

goals (Ezeanyanike, 2013).  

Another example of the instruction-related episode occurred at the beginning of the reviewing 

session. The participants deliberated on how to carry out the editing process and decided on the 

exact aspects of the writing to look at and correct. With the help of a tutor, the participants identified 

criteria for the editing process such as at grammar, spelling, punctuation and organisation of their 

writing. 

 

Idea-generation Episode  

Swain and Lapkin (1998) categorise any stretch of discourse made by the students when writing, 

which dealt with the generation of an idea for their writing as ‘idea unit’. Idea-generation episode 

occurred while the participants were retrieving and generating knowledge and ideas related to the ill-



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154 

structured problems, possible causes, effects or solution to the ill-structured problems. It also 

occurred when the participants decided on what specific causes or solutions to include in their 

writing. Excerpt 2 illustrates this. In this excerpt, the participants brainstormed viable solutions to 

the ill-structured problem of why Nigerian undergraduates excessively engage with social media. 

 

Excerpt 2 

Umar:  Umm…first of all we have to identify the causes of the problem. 

John:   Can anybody give us one? 

Habib:  But are we looking for the solutions not the causes or? What the question demands us 

to do 

Umar:  How can you propose solutions without the causes? 

Habib:  Hmm (2.0), the cause is too much engagement on internet  

Umar:  That is not the cause. That is the problem. What causes the problem? 

Habib:  Short cuts, they are looking for shortcuts. They don’t want to engage in using books or 

consulting books 

Umar:  Ok, that is one of the causes. One of the causes is that desire to go hand in hand with 

the modern world. The students want to go alone with modernity  

John:   Just use one word for it 

Umar:  When we say modernity… what does it mean? 

John:  If I understand, what you are saying is that the students want to become modern 

people 

Umar:   Ok, modernity do you agree? 

Justina:             Yes,  

Habib:  I think another factor is socialization, the effect of socialization  

Umar:  How? I see socialization is part of   modernity 

 

Umar suggested that they should first identify the causes of the problem. Habib objected that 

they were asked to provide solutions not causes to the problem. Umar had to explain it to the group 

that they could only provide viable solutions when they identified the causes of the problem. They 

all agreed to first think about the possible causes to the problem then suggest viable solutions based 

on their personal experiences and views. As could be seen from Excerpt 3, the participants generated 

various causes to the problem such as lack of reading habit among students and the desire to go with 

the modern world. Having identified the possible causes, they elaborated each of the causes and 

suggested a viable solution. For example, they suggested that online teaching should be adopted to 

make learning interesting to students. They further suggested that school managements should 

regulate the use of the Internet to avoid its abuse by the students. The interactions show that PBL 

processes involved all the participants in the learning process and encouraged to recall information 

(Ezeanyanike, 2013) they already acquired related to the problems. Generating ideas also involved 

the awareness of metacognitive knowledge of task (Wenden, 1991), as the participants generate 

ideas which are a requirement for the accomplishment of the writing task and decision-making on 

what to include in the writing.  

 

 

 

Organisation-related Episode 

Amirkhiz (2012) describes the organisation of ideas as a collaborative discourse dealing with the 

organisation and arrangement of ideas in a text. Organisation-related episodes occurred when the 

participants retrieved their rhetorical knowledge which included knowledge of how to write a title, 

thesis statement, and link ideas then decided on how to organise their ideas and arrange paragraphs 

in the writing. Having generated the possible causes and solutions to the ill-structured problem, the 

participants used their rhetorical knowledge to logically organise and present their ideas into 

paragraphs in the writing as shown in Excerpt 3. At this point, the participants discussed how to 

present viable solutions to the problem of terrorism in Northern Nigeria.    

 

Excerpt 3       

Yunus:  Now who will suggest how we will plan the essay because we should draft now? 

Amina:  The essay should take steps, from introduction, then the body, main issues there and 

we will give our recommendation or solutions then conclusion. 



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155 

Yunus:  So, I think paragraph one is introduction. Write it in our outline.  

Ishaq:   What shall we write in the introduction? 

Yunus:  For the introduction, we… we give background of the problem. So that who doesn’t 

know the situation now, in the introduction, he should know the situation, like the 

problem given to us has explained the situation. 

Amina:  In the body… how do we do this? Are we going to mention the cause’s solution or we 

mention the causes then we have some other paragraphs to explain the solution?  

Abubakar:  I suggest that, lets mention the causes then later, the solutions 

 

In Excerpt 3, the participants showed their understanding of the need to arrange and present 

their ideas in a manner that would be meaningful to the reader. First, Amina suggested that their 

writing should have three parts, viz: i) the introduction, ii) the body where they would discuss the 

causes and solutions of terrorism, and ii) the conclusion respectively. All other participants agreed to 

present the ideas in that order. Also, Yunus suggested that an overview and background information 

to the ill-structured problem of terrorism in Northern Nigeria should be presented in the introductory 

paragraph. In the body of the essay, Yunus further suggested that each possible cause with its viable 

solutions should be presented in a paragraph of its own. This opinion was not agreed upon by 

Abubakar, who suggested that they should divide the body into two parts. In the first part, each of 

the causes of terrorism should be presented in a paragraph. In the second part, each possible solution 

to terrorism should also be presented in a paragraph. This suggestion was agreed upon by all the 

group members.  

These interactions, as presented in Excerpt 3, have proven that rhetorical knowledge is a 

prerequisite for planning writing activities. This is the knowledge they acquired on how to translate 

their ideas into writing and present it to the audience.  It involves a decision on where and how to 

put and develop every idea from the overall composition to a single paragraph (Wenden, 1991). 

The process also reveals how the PBL approach helped the participants to be more aware of the need 

for proper organisation in their writing. It also helped them to learn strategies on how to arrange 

and, logically, present their ideas.  

 

Language-related Episode 

Swain and Lapkin (2002) define language-related episode as any group of utterances or segment of 

dialogue in which group members talk about the language they produced, correct themselves, or 

reflect on their use of language. In this study, language-related episodes occurred when the 

participants retrieved their linguistic knowledge and determined the accurate and appropriate 

language to use in their writing. This includes grammatical accuracy, tense, word order, articles, 

appropriate words and expressions. Excerpt 4 is an example of a language-related episode from the 

participants’ interactions. The participants were deliberating on the ill-structured problem of 

terrorism in Northern Nigeria. 

 

Excerpt 4 

Umar:  Well, (…) you said “the operations are normally carried out by trained youth and 

children’ it sounds as if the children and the youth carried it and do it as their own 

interest, and we know it is not like that. We better said they were either lured to do it 

or they were forced to do it. So we can say under age youth are lured or are enticed  

John:  What do you mean by this lured? It is the same thing. They are innocent. It is not 

their wish to carry.  I suggest we add innocent. It will be innocent youth and children. 

Habib:  The operations were carried out by trained youth and children who are enticed or 

forced to carry it unwillingly. 

Justina:  I have problem with the words ENTICED and unwillingly 

Facilitator:  What do you observed?  

Justina:  the use of the words, if they are enticed then it cannot be unwillingly. 

Umar:   You check your dictionary? 

If they are enticed meaning they are given something to do it. So they are 

willing to do it 

Habib:  Ok, let’s put it this way, the operations were carried out by trained youth and children 

who are enticed or forced to execute the operation. 

 



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156 

Umar described how the terrorists involved children in their activities. He used the words 

lured or forced to show that the children were involved in the activities unwillingly. John suggested 

that the word innocent should be added to qualify the children. Umar then suggested a more suitable 

word entice to substitute lured. However, Justina raised observation on the use of the words enticed 

and unwillingly in the same sentence. She pointed out that the two words have opposite meanings; 

therefore, both cannot be possibly used within the same expression. However, Umar suggested that 

they should check their dictionary after which they agreed on the appropriate word to use. This 

indicates how the PBL approach allowed the participants to deliberate on their language and to use 

appropriate words to express their ideas in a writing process. This shows how the PBL approach 

allowed the participants to think from their previous knowledge and to build from the knowledge of 

others to improve their language writing.    

 

Monitoring in the Writing Process 

Monitoring is the process where the participants kept track of their progress from one stage of 

writing to another while identifying any problem that hinders the writing progress. Two episodes 

related to monitoring were identified during the PBL writing process: the transition-related episode 

and the problem-recognition episode. The names of the episodes emerged from this study based on 

Wenden’s (1991) model.    

 

Transition-related Episode 

The transition-related episode occurred when the participants kept track of their writing progress 

from one aspect or stage of writing to another by announcing the writing stage they were at or 

heading towards. For instance, they checked their progress and decided when to stop generating 

ideas and start writing. Also, during writing, they made sure the sequence of the paragraphs in the 

outline was followed while drafting viable solutions. They also decided on when to end a paragraph 

and start a new one. While reviewing the writing, they checked to ensure that all their ideas were 

included in writing. Excerpt 5 is an example showing how the participants monitored the progress of 

their writing process. The excerpt occurred after the participants exchanged the findings of their self-

study to their group. The participants agreed to draft their proposed solutions. 

 

Excerpt 5 

Amina:  The next thing is writing an essay. We are done with the learning issue. 

Abubakar:  We have already drafted an outline. Amina, bring it. We have all the causes to the 

problem outlined and the proposed solutions.  

Tutor:   Do you all agree with the outline?  

Ishaq:   Yes, we do 

Abubakar:  Ok, let’s start writing 

Yunus:   Binta, you can write for us.  

Binta:   Ok. 

Abubakar:  Let’s follow it and exhaust all the causes and the solutions then we go back and edit.  

Ishaq:  Yes, if there is any addition or subtraction we do that after. 

 

Amina, who was the group leader in the session, announced that they should start drafting. 

Abubakar suggested that they should follow their outline, which is the list of the possible causes and 

the viable solutions to the problem of terrorism in Northern Nigeria then the possible solutions. 

Abubakar further suggested that while drafting their essay, they should present the causes and the 

solutions to the problems. They should not mind editing the work at that moment since they could 

edit and rewrite it in the subsequent session. These interactions indicate that the PBL approach 

helped the participants to monitor their writing progress. As Amina pointed out that they should 

stop generating ideas and start drafting the essay, they became more aware of the whole writing 

process. This is shown where Abubakar emphasised that the outline should be followed and 

reminded them that they could edit and rewrite the essay afterwards. This also shows that PBL 

heightened the participants’ awareness as they determined when to begin or to stop a process as well 

as what enough is or not. 

 

Problem-recognition Episode 

The problem-recognition episode occurred when the participants identified a problem or 

acknowledged that they had a problem executing some aspects of their writing. For example, when 



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157 

they were confused about a word, or had an idea, but did not know how to present the idea. These 

are identified as problem-recognition episodes. This is illustrated in Except 6 below. The episode 

occurred while the group members were drafting possible solutions to the second ill-structured 

problem of the Nigerian undergraduates’ excessive engagement with social media. The participants 

identified an obstacle to the writing process. 

 

Excerpt 6 

Umar:  Now the problem is how we link modernity with our topic. We have now defined 

modernity but how does it contribute to the undergraduates’ excessive engagement 

with social media? =   

Habib:  =Because everybody wants to be modern 

Umar:  Everyone wants to go hand in hand with modernity  

Habib:  Everybody wants to break from the bounds of tradition and pre-modern system  

Umar:  That is why anything that regarded as modern is blindly accepted at the expense of its 

impact whether it is negative or positive. So how do we link it for example the 

possession of handset and registering or joining of social media? 

Habib:  Nowadays (…) everybody possess handset just to be part of modernity  

Umar:   Yes, not only because of communication 

Habib: Yes, not only because of communication but because they want to go hand in hand 

with modernity. They don’t want to be called a primitive person. Also engaging in 

social media is now a treat. 

 

During the idea-generation process, they identified modernity as one of the factors that 

caused the Nigerian undergraduates to engage excessively with social media. However, while 

drafting they did not know how to present it in the writing to show its connection with the problem 

of students’ excessive engagement with social media. This was pointed out by Umar. After the long 

discussions, they realised how modernity is linked to the problem. Umar mentioned that 

undergraduate students considered social media as part of modernity. Thus, they blindly embraced it 

without considering its negative consequences. At this point, the interactions indicate that PBL 

process has encouraged the participants to collaborate, pull ideas from one another to identify and 

solve problems in their writing process. 

 

Evaluation in the Writing Process 

Evaluation is the process where the participants reviewed their proposed solutions to the ill-

structured problems by rereading words, sentences, paragraphs. In the process, they referred to the 

knowledge (world knowledge, rhetorical knowledge and linguistic knowledge) they retrieved during 

planning to improve the content, clarity, organisation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and 

punctuation of the proposed solutions.  

Three episodes emerged from the evaluation process: content-related episodes, organisation-

related episodes, and language-related episodes. Both the content-related episode and the 

organisation-related episodes are modified from Amirkhiz’s (2012) clarification of content and 

organisation of ideas. On the other end, the language-related episode is adopted from Swain and 

Lapkin (1998). The following sections present the episodes with examples from the participants’ 

interactions. 

 

Content-related Episode 

Amirkhiz’s (2012) describes the clarification of content as learners’ collaborative discourse dealing 

with the content of their writing. In this study, content-related episodes occurred when the 

participants accessed their message knowledge, which is their understanding of what they wanted to 

say about the ill-structured problem and compared it to the written viable solutions to make 

corrections. Excerpt 7 is an example of how the participants evaluated the content of their writing. 

In the episode, the participants reviewed the written viable solutions to the problem of terrorism in 

Northern Nigeria. The participants referred to their brainstorming and checked the plausibility and 

viability of the solutions generated and compared them with the text. 

 

Excerpt 7 



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158 

Umar:  Let us look at our introduction. We said we should start by defining the key terms, 

which are the social media and undergraduate students. Because they are regarded as 

the main issue in the topic 

Babayo:   Yes 

Umar:  That day we mentioned different definitions of social media. First, we said it is 

networking site that brings friends, family etc together. Second, we said use of different 

media for communication. Third, we said societal mass communication. Lastly, we 

merged the definitions to come with one that is better. 

Habib:  Yes, we also need to include the verses that talk of the consequences. 

 

In Excerpt 9, Umar suggested that they should refer to their outline to see the list of the 

possible causes and solutions generated during the brainstorming session. That helped them to see 

whether all the ideas generated were included orderly as in the outline or otherwise. Umar reminded 

them that they agreed to begin the essay by defining key terms. Therefore, he read the introductory 

paragraph to check whether the key terms were defined. It was found that the paragraph needed to 

be rewritten. Habib then suggested that some verses from the two holy books, the Bible and the 

Quran, should be used to support their claims that terrorism is evil since most of their readers 

practise either Christianity or Islam. The interactions have confirmed the claim on the importance of 

content knowledge in evaluating one’s writing (Wenden, 1991). 

 

Organisation-related Episode 

According to Amirkhiz (2013) organisation of ideas is a collaborative discourse dealing with the 

organisation and arrangement of ideas in a text. In this study, organisation-related episodes occurred 

when the participants used their rhetorical knowledge to evaluate the appropriateness and accuracy 

of the organisation and arrangement of ideas in their writing. This episode occurred during both the 

planning and the evaluation. 

 

Language-related Episode 

Swain and Lapkin (2002) describe the language-related episode as any group of utterances or 

segment of dialogue in which group members talk about or reflect on the language they produced 

and correct themselves. In this study, language-related episodes occurred when the participants used 

their linguistic knowledge to evaluate the accurateness and appropriateness of the language used in 

the written product. They reviewed the writing and corrected their language-related mistakes. This 

included tense, word order, articles, word and expression choices, spelling and punctuations. This 

episode also occurred at planning. 

 

Discussion  

The findings of the study showed that PBL encouraged the participants to use metacognitive 

strategies in various ways to achieve their writing goals. For the planning process, the participants 

made an overall plan of their writing process, generated various viable solutions to the ill-structured 

problems, retrieved their rhetorical and linguistic knowledge, and made decisions on what and how 

to present ideas in their writing. In the monitoring process, PBL allowed the participants to keep 

track of their writing process, identify and solve any problem that would hinder the process. During 

the evaluation process, the interactions enabled them to review their writing output to evaluate the 

content, organisation and the language used. It is further shown that the use of metacognitive 

strategy in the participants’ writing process was not linear; it was cyclical. For instance, while 

generating ideas, the participants planned, monitored and evaluated the process. Also, while drafting 

or reviewing their writing, the participants referred to the planning to check for consistency between 

the ideas outlined during the planning and the written product. 

These results are in line with most of the recommendations of Graham and Harris (2009), and 

Xiao (2007) on how to develop students’ metacognition and writing skills. Those studies pointed out 

that instructors should, among other things, engage and support learners in the writing process, 

provide ample time for writing and allow them to monitor their writing performance. Instructors 

should also incorporate instructional procedures that allow learners to work together to plan, draft, 

revise, and edit their writing. 

It was further revealed from the study that the PBL approach is effective in allowing the 

participants to be aware of the task knowledge, which is essential in using the metacognitive 

strategies (Wenden, 1991). This was possible because the PBL approach encouraged the participants 



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to learn collaboratively by sharing and exchanging ideas. They gathered more information from 

their various personal experiences. This is in line with findings of Beebe and Masterson (2003) that 

in a collaborative learning process, groups have more information than a single individual does. The 

results also confirm Wenden’s (1991, 1998) study that to accomplish writing goals, writers need to 

be aware of the need to use their metacognitive task knowledge.  

 

 

CONCLUSION 

The study aims to examine how the participants use metacognitive strategies in the PBL writing 

process. The findings reveal that the participants used metacognitive strategies: planning, monitoring 

and evaluation in various ways which helped them to achieve their writing goals.  For the planning 

process, the participants made an overall plan of their writing process, generated various ideas, 

retrieved their rhetorical and linguistic knowledge, and made decisions on what and how to present 

ideas in their writing. For monitoring, they keep track of the transition of ideas and paragraphs in 

their writing and identify and remedy problems that affect the writing progress. For evaluation, the 

evaluated the content, organisation, and language of their writing. There are some limitations to the 

study which could affect the generalizability of the findings. The number of participants is very small 

and the participants have almost the same characteristics. The intervention period is also not very 

long. Future studies can select a larger number of participants and administer the PBL treatment of a 

longer period. Despite the limitations and other challenges, the study has provided teachers with an 

approach that can motivate students to use metacognitive strategies in the writing process which in 

turn enhance their writing performance. 

 

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APPENDIX 

Ill-structured Problems 

Problem 1 (First PBL cycle) 

The recent attacks and abductions of some university students by some terrorist groups in the 

northern part of the country and the involvement of some university students in terrorism have put 

fear in some parents and students. This has caused some students, particularly those in that part of the 

country to transfer their scholarship to other universities while others even abandon schooling 

completely. What do you think could be done to solve the problem? 

Collaboratively discuss the problem in your groups following the PBL steps and propose viable 

solutions to the problem. You are given three weeks to work on the problem with your group 

members and come up with proposed solutions to the problem. 

Problem 2 (Second PBL cycle) 

In recent years, parents, lecturers and government have shown their concern over the poor academic 

performances and study attitudes of Nigerian undergraduates. Excessive engagement of social media 

by the undergraduate students has been identified as one of the contributing factors to the menace. A 

recent study by Okechukwu and Ngozi, (2014) has shown that majority of Nigerian undergraduates 

engage in at least two and above forms of social media. It has been observed that most of the students 

spend much of their times on the internet instead of studies. On average, the students spent 6-7 hours 

on social media a day, as a result, it affects their academic performances and study attitudes 

negatively.  

Propose viable solutions to address this problem following the PBL steps. You are given three weeks 

to work on the problem with your group members and come up with proposed solutions. 


