Influence of metacognitive awareness on engineering students’ performance: a study of listening skills

Abstract

Educative learning equips learners not with a mechanical set of skills but with a fertile thinking that enables them to holistically nurture their knowledge and skills. Metacognitive awareness, an advanced understanding and execution of skills helps learners not only acquire knowledge of their own cognitive processes but also manage learning activities. This paper aims to trace the impact of metacognition on the extent of the learning (listening skills), the difference between the levels of understanding (assumed and attained), learning of the performance and application of theoretical knowledge of listening skills among engineering students. The study proposes a five-step AWARE concept of metacognition to help the learners become more aware of and reflect on their learning. The study has used consecutive sampling technique and participants are engineering students of BITS Pilani, India. Engineering students assume that their level and clarity of awareness is very high but the findings do not support their assumption. There is a gap in the theoretical acquisition and practical applicability. Metacognition helps learners understand what they know, what they do not know, what they learn, and how they learn. Understanding of and clarity about the process of learning would enable the engineering students to use their listening skills in the learning factories to facilitate the sharing of information.