Amayah Jones
ENGL 1102
Dr. Weaver
25 April 2022
How Metacognition Can Make Starting College Manageable
Many students stress over college, especially first-year students who are unaware of what to expect. One way for these scholars to get the best out of their education and succeed is by getting acquainted with metacognition. Metacognition is a form of self-awareness in relation to one’s thought process or how one learns, and the advantages have been shown by extensive research and experimentation. The use of metacognition can be of service to students in higher education, especially those in community colleges to develop their information processing as well as their sense of self. So, it is important to assert metacognition in higher education because it helps scholars succeed in their classes in turn easing the anxiety brought by starting college.
Starting College Struggle
In many cases, scholars starting college may begin to struggle because they are not completely prepared for this transition. Professors Richard T. Ward and Darrell L. Butler in their article published in Education journal mention research supporting that “college freshmen underachievement is related to poor study skills, poor time management, and an overall lack of understanding of how to tackle difficult challenges” (Ward and Butler 122). As a result of the impromptu approach taken by first-year students, they begin to struggle with college challenges. High school provides structure for the students working as bumpers on a bowling lane to keep them on a determined path. Issues such as poor time management and poor study habits stem from students not being used to the free system of college and the idea that once they fall there are no regulations set in place to catch them. However, metacognition has been shown to make the transition more fluid and allow scholars to manage these new trials. John Ottenhoff mentions in Liberal Education that a teacher “. . . came to see that instruction in metacognitive skills may be particularly important for first-year students as they adjust to the expectations of college-level work. . .”(Ottenhoff 3). Students will then be able to assess their understanding according to these expectations and adapt. If first-year students are not advised on cognitive strategies, they are less likely to improve their skills, so metacognition is essential in the progression to college.
Furthermore, metacognition can especially help students advancing to community colleges who often find themselves at a disadvantage due to fewer resources. Brandilynn Villarreal argues in her dissertation titled When Ambitions Aren’t enough: The Role of Motivation, Self-Regulation, and Individual Agency in Higher-Education Goal Pursuit, “Compared to university students, community college students are less familiar with higher educational systems, less academically prepared, and face greater financial pressures” (Villarreal 29). This results in dropouts and resistance to seeking a four-year degree. These scholars are discouraged because of their circumstances and require self-regulation for long term success.
Better Study Habits
As scholars regulate and monitor their learning, they will need to acknowledge unhealthy habits that repress them academically and consider strategies that will help them thrive. This topic is presented in, psychology professor at Samford University, Dr.Chew’s series on how to get the most out of studying giving detailed insight on how metacognition can lead to academic success during the transition to college. Dr. Chew expresses that instead of believing misconceptions from high school such as memorizing isolated facts and thinking multitasking is effective, students should focus when studying and aim for deep processing (Chew 1). Developing awareness leads to better study strategies leading to deep processing. If you know how you learn whether it is through association of feelings or memories or application to another subject, you can enhance your understanding of a topic. Overall, self-awareness is a guide to managing the load of higher-level work, not to mention putting in the effort.
Putting it into Action
Another important concept of college success is note-taking, which is a metacognitive skill. The notes are what students study and absorb so it is imperative to use them according to how they learn, which demonstrates a need for self-awareness in test prep. Ward and Butler display the relationship by mentioning “Isaacson and Fujita (2006) found that undergraduate students with greater metacognitive knowledge performed better on tests compared to those with a lower degree of metacognitive knowledge” (Ward and Butler). It is known that proper studying improves test scores, but this further insinuates that the correlation between metacognition and academic success is positive. In other words, the implication of metacognitive skills benefit scholars with subjects as important as test prep.
The importance of self-regulation is not made apparent to some students in high school so they believe in the end they are destined to succeed without applying ample work. Many college freshmen assume they can bring high school habits to college such as last-minute studying when they should understand that learning is not fast, so it takes time to properly process information which means legitimately learning it (Chew 1). Taking the time to study effectively is a more realistic way to prepare for a test than trying to remember facts the night before. It is also important for these students to realize college-level courses go beyond quick learning and require the use of metacognitive skills for a rooted comprehension of college material. Metacognition can create automaticity once scholars have produced habits for success. In other words, once scholars have established adequate study habits, they will become accustomed to these habits causing them to become active practices towards a successful college career.
Uncertainty and Anxiety
As previously discussed, the first year of college can be the most stressful for college students because of their uncertainty in the unfamiliar environment. Among students “. . . enrolled in American colleges and universities, anxiety was by far the most commonly reported mental health problem” (Komfeld 562). Uncertainty triggers anxiety leaving students in academic limbo. Freshmen face mental breakdowns as well as panic brought by a fear of failure so what they need is a way to cope with this stress. Self-awareness generates certainty since it provides a solution to college stress; it is a way of clearing an otherwise obscure trial. Moreover, the lowest-performing students can improve if they take the time to consider where their anxiety is coming from and establish skills to combat these emotional hardships.
Conclusion
In retrospect, the distress endured by college freshmen can be expected when facing any new experience. It is understood that there is a possibility they will arrive with years of implanted rules and expectations from high school, but what is important is that they are introduced to metacognition. This is a way for them to shift their perspective and learn that study strategies are most effective when analogous to self-awareness; so, if a scholar knows how they learn they can apply it in their notetaking and studying. Thus, developing these metacognitive skills is crucial for components leading to college success and overall self-development.
Work Cited
OTTENHOFF, JOHN. “Metacognition in Liberal Education.” Liberal Education, vol. 97, no. 3/4, Summer/Fall2011 2011, pp. 28–33. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=fth&AN=67148637&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Chew, Stephen. “How to Study.” How to Get the Most Out of Studying, www.samford.edu/departments/academic-success-center/how-to-study.
WARD, RICHARD T., and DARRELL L. BUTLER. “An Investigation of Metacognitive Awareness and Academic Performance in College Freshmen.” Education, vol. 139, no. 3, Spring 2019, pp. 120–26. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=a9h&AN=136190808&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Komfeld, Eve. “History and the Mental Health Crisis: Preparing University Students to Live with Uncertainty through Authentic Research and Metacognition.” History Teacher, vol. 53, no. 3, May 2020, pp. 561–85. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=a9h&AN=145299669&site=eds-live&scope=site.