Multiple levels of metacognition and their elicitation through complex problem-solving tasks

• Metacognition has been reconceptualized on multiple levels, looking at the sources that trigger metacognition.
• Metacognition can be elicited through problems requiring definition building and operationalizing definitions.
• Problems that require students to negotiate their individual and social meaning encourage metacognitive processes.
• This paper implicates the importance of social sources for improving metacognitive learning environments.

Building on prior efforts, we re-conceptualize metacognition on multiple levels, looking at the sources that trigger metacognition at the individual level, the social level, and the environmental level. This helps resolve the paradox of metacognition: metacognition is personal, but it cannot be explained exclusively by individualistic conceptions. We develop a theoretical model of metacognition in collaborative problem solving based on models and modeling perspectives. The theoretical model addresses several challenges previously found in the research of metacognition. This paper illustrates how metacognition was elicited, at the environmental level, through problems requiring different problem-solving processes (definition building and operationalizing definitions), and how metacognition operated at both the individual level and the social level during complex problem solving. The re-conceptualization of metacognition has the potential to guide the development of metacognitive activities and effective instructional methods to integrate them into existing curricula that are necessary to engage students in active, higher-order learning.