Me Examining Me: Getting Underneath Metacognition

Part of B Optimal’s series on learning practice:

Making Learning Practices Visible, Developable, and Actionable

Metacognition is often introduced as “thinking about thinking.” The generic phrase leaves a great deal unexplained about what is involved.

That examination has a distinctive feature: when I examine my own cognition, I am both the person conducting the examination and the person whose cognition is being examined. Whatever I bring with me—what I know, what I believe, what I assume, how I interpret, what I have experienced—does not disappear simply because I turn my attention toward myself.

Metacognition concerns knowledge about cognition and the monitoring and regulation of cognitive activity (Flavell, 1979; Nelson & Narens, 1990; Stanton et al., 2021). The argument here is not that metacognition should be redefined. It is that metacognitive activity is always conducted by a person whose standpoint, assumptions, ways of knowing, and interpretations can shape the examination.

Metacognition makes cognition available for examination and regulation. This article asks what shapes the quality of that examination when the person doing the examining brings a standpoint, assumptions, interpretations, and ways of knowing to the process.

That distinction matters because objectivity depends on how we engage in metacognitive examination. It gives us ways to make cognition available for examination and regulation, but the quality of that examination can vary. We can monitor inaccurately, interpret through unexamined assumptions, evaluate with weak evidence, or regulate from a conclusion that was never adequately scrutinized.

The deeper question, then, is not only whether we are engaging metacognitively. It is how we are conducting that examination and what we understand about ourselves as the person doing it.

Getting underneath metacognition also allows us to look behind the curtain. We can begin to see more of what is operating as we engage metacognitively—how we know, what we assume, how we interpret, what we accept as evidence, and how our standpoint shapes what becomes available for examination.

Ideas from several intellectual traditions help us understand these influences and what they mean for the quality of metacognitive activity.

Consider what it means to decide that I understand something. I have made a judgment about my own cognition, but that judgment rests on something. Maybe I can explain the idea without assistance. Maybe I recognize the material and mistake familiarity for understanding. Maybe I simply feel confident. The moment we ask what warrants the judgment, we encounter questions that epistemology has examined for centuries: What do I know? How do I know it? What counts as evidence? How justified is my confidence?

Those questions matter because metacognitive judgments are still judgments. They can be well grounded or poorly grounded, accurate or inaccurate (Schraw & Dennison, 1994; Stanton et al., 2021). Metacognition gives us ways to monitor and evaluate cognition; it does not automatically tell us what evidence to use or whether we have interpreted that evidence well.

And the ways we know and interpret did not develop in isolation. The sociology of knowledge has long examined how knowledge is produced and shaped within social life, while the social construction of reality draws attention to meanings and categories that become established through interaction and institutions (Mannheim, 1936; Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Ideas about intelligence, competence, success, failure, evidence, learning, and even what counts as a problem have social histories. By the time I use those ideas to understand myself, many may feel self-evident (Smith, 1987).

This means the cognition I examine is mine, but it has developed through engagement with a world beyond me. My experiences, relationships, education, disciplines, institutions, and cultures have contributed to the ways I understand and interpret. Metacognitive activity may occur within me, but neither the person doing the examining nor the cognition being examined developed independently of context.

Standpoint theory takes us further into that relationship. If knowing is situated, I always examine from somewhere. My standpoint can influence what becomes visible to me, which questions occur to me, what I treat as relevant, and which explanations seem plausible (Harding, 1991; Smith, 1987; Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d.). There is no need to treat this as a flaw that can somehow be removed. It is a condition of knowing.

That condition matters for objectivity. Metacognition does not automatically make me objective simply because I am examining myself. I can engage metacognitively while carrying assumptions and biases through the process. Objectivity is something I can work toward in how I engage metacognitive activity.

Here the apparent contradiction is useful. I cannot fully step outside my standpoint, but I can examine from within it while trying to identify what it may be causing me to see, assume, privilege, or overlook. Objectivity does not require pretending that I have no standpoint. It means trying to keep my standpoint, assumptions, preferences, and desired conclusions from determining the evaluation before I conduct it.

How I frame an experience can reveal how much this matters. A learner who receives a poor result on a math assignment might conclude, “I’m bad at math.” Another might think, “The techniques I used for this assignment need to be assessed.” Growth- and fixed-mindset orientations offer one familiar way of understanding the difference (Dweck, 2006). The result has not changed, but the frame has, and with it what the learner is likely to make available for examination.

We can also turn the examination toward the frame itself. Reflexivity gives us useful language for doing that. In the social sciences, reflexivity asks the knower to consider their own role in producing knowledge (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Applied alongside metacognitive activity, it expands what we can scrutinize. Instead of examining only the conclusion I reached, I can examine how I arrived there and what I brought to the interpretation.

Reflexivity and standpoint theory help illuminate the conditions under which metacognitive activity occurs and how the examination can become more informed.

The same is true when we move from noticing something about our cognition to deciding what that observation means. What we notice does not arrive with its meaning attached. Monitoring and interpretation are distinguishable for precisely this reason. I can accurately notice what happened and still misunderstand what it means.

Hermeneutics has long dealt with this problem of interpretation: we make sense of what we encounter through prior understanding (Gadamer, 2004). What we already know, expect, and assume participates in what we make of an observation.

That makes interpretation itself available for examination. Rather than treating my first explanation as though it were contained in what I observed, I can distinguish between the observation and the meaning I assigned to it. Phenomenology offers a related idea through bracketing—the attempt to hold assumptions or judgments in suspension sufficiently to attend to what is present before allowing an explanation to settle (Husserl, 1983).

This brings us back to the kinds of questions that started this inquiry. “What happened?” leaves something open that “Why did I fail?” has already decided. “How is this strategy working?” allows a different examination from “Why isn't this strategy working?” Questions beginning with what, why, or how are not inherently metacognitive or objective. Their value depends on whether they open examination or carry a conclusion into it.

That distinction also keeps metacognition from becoming synonymous with self-correction. Making cognition available for examination does not mean something must be wrong or must change. Monitoring may indicate that an approach is working. Evaluation may support continuing it. An interpretation may survive closer scrutiny. Regulation follows from what the examination warrants rather than from an assumption that adjustment is always required.

The conclusion we reach can still be wrong. Fallibilism gives us a useful way of understanding that position. Our judgments can be warranted while remaining open to revision (Popper, 1963). We can act on those judgments while remaining responsive to new evidence. That openness is what allows evidence to matter.

And evidence eventually pushes the examination beyond what I think about my own cognition. Does what I thought I knew hold up when I have to retrieve, explain, apply, or transfer it? Pragmatism connects inquiry with experience and consequences, giving our judgments something beyond preference or intuition against which to work (Dewey, 1938).

Recognizing that knowledge is situated does not make those consequences disappear. Critical realism helps hold both ideas together. Our access to reality can be partial, interpreted, socially influenced, and fallible while there is still a reality that does not simply conform to what we believe about it (Bhaskar, 2008). Evidence can challenge an interpretation, a strategy can fail even when I believe it works, and an outcome can resist the explanation I would prefer.

Objectivity, then, becomes neither a claim that I can remove myself from the examination nor an impossible standard that must be abandoned because I cannot. It becomes something I can work toward by making more of what I bring to the examination available for scrutiny and allowing evidence to challenge my conclusions.

If these factors shape the quality of metacognitive activity, they also matter for how metacognitive capability is developed. Metacognition includes the capacity to make aspects of cognition available for examination and regulation. Metacognitive activity occurs when we engage those processes. But the quality of that activity can vary. Someone can monitor through an unexamined assumption, interpret through a frame they have mistaken for fact, evaluate using weak evidence, or regulate from a conclusion that was never adequately examined.

Metacognition gives us the capacity to examine cognition. It does not guarantee that we examine it objectively, accurately, reflexively, or with awareness of our standpoint. Those are qualities that can themselves be developed.

This means developing metacognitive capability involves more than getting people to engage in more reflection or asking them to think about their thinking. Greater capability includes becoming more deliberate about the grounds on which we interpret, evaluate, and regulate our own cognition.

The Metacognitive Moves System gives that work greater specificity by distinguishing Task Framing, Strategy Selection, Resource Allocation, Monitoring, Interpretation, Adjustment, Evaluation, and Transfer. The moves identify different forms of metacognitive work; they do not determine the quality with which that work will be carried out. What I believe about learning can influence how I frame a task. What I count as evidence can shape monitoring and evaluation. How I interpret an experience can affect what I adjust and what I carry forward.

Looking behind the curtain helps us see more of what can shape how metacognitive moves are made. The moves give us greater specificity about the metacognitive work itself. The perspectives explored here give us greater insight into what the person brings to that work and the conditions under which it is conducted.

That is where the traditions we have been considering become useful in practice. They do not need to be folded into the definition of metacognition. They help us identify dimensions that can shape metacognitive activity and suggest what may be worth developing if we want that activity to become more objective, better grounded, and more responsive to evidence.

Metacognition remains cognitive and regulatory. When we look closely at how people actually engage in it, epistemic, reflexive, interpretive, and situated dimensions become visible. They remind us that the person examining cognition is a knower with a standpoint, a history, assumptions, ways of interpreting, and judgments that remain capable of error.

That is what “thinking about thinking” leaves out. Me examining me means that I am never outside the examination. What I can develop is a greater capacity to recognize what I bring to it, examine what I might otherwise take for granted, remain responsive to evidence, and work toward greater objectivity in how I understand and regulate my own cognition.

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References

This article is intended as a thought piece rather than a comprehensive review of the literature. The references below include key works that informed the ideas discussed.

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Anchor Books. https://www.deempathischeorganisatie.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Berger-social-construction-of-reality-BOEK.pdf 

Bhaskar, R. (2008). A realist theory of science. Routledge. (Original work published 1975) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24058718M/A_realist_theory_of_science

Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. University of Chicago Press. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1562288M/An_invitation_to_reflexive_sociology

Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The theory of inquiry. Henry Holt and Company. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL13525660M/Logic_the_theory_of_inquiry

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/44330/mindset-by-carol-s-dweck-phd/

Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906–911. https://www.neurodyspaca.org/IMG/pdf/flavell_-_1979_-_metacognition_and_cognitive_monitoring.pdf

Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and method (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.; 2nd rev. ed.). Continuum. (Original work published 1960) https://www.forum-transregionale-studien.de/fileadmin/pdf/zukunftsphilologie/lecture-cum-seminar/2014-01-16_Gadamer_Truth_and_Method______Part_III_Chpt_1.pdf 

Harding, S. (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge? Thinking from women’s lives. Cornell University Press. https://books.google.com/books/about/Whose_Science_Whose_Knowledge.html?id=NY_uAAAAMAAJ

Husserl, E. (1983). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy: First book: General introduction to a pure phenomenology (F. Kersten, Trans.). Martinus Nijhoff. (Original work published 1913) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL2124669M/Ideas_pertaining_to_a_pure_phenomenology_and_to_a_phenomenological_philosophy

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.). Feminist standpoint theory. University of Tennessee at Martin. https://iep.utm.edu/fem-stan/

Mannheim, K. (1936). Ideology and utopia: An introduction to the sociology of knowledge (L. Wirth & E. Shils, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace and Company. https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.187027/2015.187027.Ideology-And-Utopia.pdf

Nelson, T. O., & Narens, L. (1990). Metamemory: A theoretical framework and new findings. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 26, pp. 125–173). Academic Press. https://sites.socsci.uci.edu/~lnarens/1990/Nelson&Narens_Book_Chapter_1990.pdf 

Popper, K. R. (1963). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. Routledge & Kegan Paul. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL17642429M/Conjectures_and_refutations

Schraw, G., & Dennison, R. S. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19(4), 460–475. https://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1994.1033

Smith, D. E. (1987). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Northeastern University Press. Find it Here

Stanton, J. D., Sebesta, A. J., & Dunlosky, J. (2021). Fostering metacognition to support student learning and performance. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(2), fe3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8734377/

Author’s Note

Tim Bower is the co-founder of B Optimal Consulting with Dr. Janine Bower and a co-developer of the Metacognitive Moves System™. Trained as applied sociologists, they examine how metacognition is defined, differentiated, and understood, including the assumptions, standpoints, and ways of knowing that can shape metacognitive activity. Their work focuses on translating learning science and applied social science into practical approaches that help learners develop greater capability in directing, examining, and improving their own learning.