An Essay On Metacognition

Humans are naturally curious beings. This curiosity occasionally generates interest into why we think a certain way. What compels us to value one thing over another? Why are some of us naturally better at a certain subject than others? All of these questions are topics that metacognitive research has strived to answer. Metacognition is the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes, or, in other words, what we think about thinking. Metacognition has been a topic that has not generated much study until the 1970s, but at that point most of the research was geared towards the memory aspects of metacognition instead of applied use (Sieck 2013). Over the last forty years, there has been a significant increase in the amount of studies conducted on metacognition, but that number is nowhere near the amount that it should be. There are so many ways in which increased study on metacognition can improve our day-to-day lives, as John Flavell said, the ideas brewing in the area of metacognition could someday be used to teach â€Å"children (and adults) to make wise and thoughtful life decisions as well as to comprehend and learn better in formal educational settings† (Sieck 2013). To this end is why it is crucial for the Department of Neuroscience to allocate more funds towards increased research on metacognition, specifically towards how metacognition can assist depressed people in getting rid of unwanted thoughts. The practical applications of metacognitive research are still being discovered. In a study conducted by German scientist Markus Paulus, he and his team discovered that older subjects were more prone to display significant developmental effects in recalling information, compared to a younger age group (Paulus 2014). Paulus shows us how as people grow older, their rate of learning grows as well. Human curiosity is a part of this too, while children can display signs of wondering about oneself, these signs are far more prominent in older people. It has long been thought that the education of our youth should be one of humanity’s foremost priorities, and methods to improve said education should be at the forefront of our minds. What hope do we as a species have if our youth do not surpass us in many ways? This thinking is what caused researcher Bennett Schwartz to conduct a study to discover the implications of metacognition for student learning. Schwartz decided to focus his research on how metacognition can â€Å"influence decisions about studying and how we might use [metacognition] to improve our learning efficiency† (Schwartz 2012). Schwartz discovered that the preconceptions students have towards whether or not something deserves to be studied are usually overconfident, and in many cases â€Å"fail to reflect variables† that could improve efficiency. His findings on how metacognition can affect the education of the youth, mainly the efficiency with which to study, will help said youth become more we ll-organized and disciplined in the future. We do not yet know the full extent to how metacognition affects our moods, but with further study this knowledge can be easily attained. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America found that one in eight children are affected with some form of anxiety. They also found that Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) affects 6.8 million American adults (Anxiety and Depression†¦). If the Department of Neuroscience would allocate more funds towards research on metacognition, we could study more the application of using metacognition to change the way we think. This would further allow us to better treat all the people with some form of depression or anxiety, maybe even going so far as to completely eradicating the disorder from human life. Without further research, we will never know the extent to which metacognition can help people. There is much that is yet to be known about metacognition, because, we still do not understand much about the science behind our thinking. The age-old argument of nurture vs. nature continues to go on, and increased research towards metacognition would go a long way towards possibly settling that argument for good. As you can see, allocating the grant money towards amplified metacognition research would be one of the best choices the Department of Neuroscience could do as improved knowledge of metacognition would allow there to be no limit to what humans could do. Once we learn how we learn, we will be able to learn even more efficiently. References Sieck W. 2013 Feb 13. Metacognition is Knowing Your Mind [Internet]. Global Cognition; [2013 Feb 13, cited 2014 Sep 18]. Available from: http://www.globalcognition.org/head-smart/metacognition-is-knowing-your-mind/ Paulus M, Tsalas N, Proust J, Sodian B. 2014. Metacognitive monitoring of oneself and others: Developmental changes during childhood and adolescence. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology [Internet] [2014 Jun 1, cited 2014 Sep 5] 122:153-165. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096513002749 Schwartz B, Efklides A. 2012. Metamemory and memory efficiency: Implications for student learning. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition [Internet]. [2012 Sep 6, cited 2014 Sep 6] 1(3):145-151. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211368112000617 Anxiety and Depression Association of America [Internet]. Silver Spring(MD):Anxiety and Depression Association of America; [cited 2014 Sep 28] . Available from: http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics