Metacognitive learning approaches emerge from self-regulated learning theory, which contends that learning is governed by cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational aspects of a person and interacts with a person's beliefs and attitudes about themselves as learners, and with the larger learning environment (reviewed in Schraw et al. 2006). The connection between metacognition and learning was first proposed by Flavell (1979). Flavell (1979) proposed that metacognition is a process of both monitoring and controlling cognition. It includes (1) personal knowledge or representations of the way a person thinks and learns in relation to other people or to tasks, goals, and activities and (2) the knowledge and use of specific skills and strategies to accomplish or learn something (Efklides 2006). Several studies have shown that metacognitive experiences are crucial to learning processes and knowledge construction (Hewson and Thorley 1989, White and Gunstone 1989, Baird et al. 1991, Hennessey 1991, 1993, Beeth 1998) and that metacognitive ability and knowledge can be improved by repeated practice throughout our lives (Brown and DeLoache 1978, Doran and Cameron 1995, Flavell et al. 1995). Schraw et al. (2006) go further to suggest that the strategic teaching of metacognition improves learning more than teaching content knowledge because students get practice learning how to learn rather than just accumulating facts.

The metacognitive activities involved in online inquiry include metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. Metacognitive knowledge is knowledge about one’s self as a learner, task knowledge and strategic to learn(Flavel,1979; McCormick,2003). While metacognitive regulation of online inquiry includes (1)planning the online inquiry; (2)monitoring and controlling the progress through the online inquiry process; and (3)reflecting on what was learned after reading certain information(Schraw,1998; Howard et al. 2011). In order to help teachers facilitate students’ learning and to ensure learners are really involved in higher levels of cognitive activities rather than just copy and paste aggregately, this study used collaboration as a teaching strategy to stimulate learners metacognitive thinking, and the effect on metacognition performance of online inquiring learning is examined.

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.1411

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED562285.pdf