An investigation of the metacognitive awareness levels of primary school students

In this research the metacognitive awareness levels of primary school students were examined according to variables such as gender, class level, mother and father education status, number of siblings, economic status of the family and sibling order. In addition, it was aimed to determine whether the students with high cognitive awareness and low cognitive awareness were using cognitive awareness strategies and to determine which strategies benefited if used. The design of the research in which the mixed research method was used was determined as an explanatory sequential pattern. The sample of the study consists of 602 students, 302 of whom are third grade and 300 of them fourth grade students determined by random sampling technique studying in six primary schools in the province of Kilis in the 2018-2019 academic year. Upper Cognitive Awareness Scale for Children (Form A) developed by Howard, Miller and Murphy (2002) was used to measure the metacognitive skills of the 3, 4 and 5th grade students. The adaptation of the scale to Turkish was done by Karakelle and Saraç (2007) In the analysis of quantitative data, Mann Whitney U test was used for sex, class level and pre-school education parameters, and Kruskall Wallis test was used for other parameters. As for Qualitative data Doganay and Demir (2011), interview questions were created by the researcher. Developed by the interview form 15 students per each group with the highest and lowest level of cognitive awareness to contradictory sampling were identified and interviews were made with these students and the data were subjected to descriptive analysis. As a result of the study, no significant difference was found between the level of metacognitive awareness and gender, class level, mother and father education status, number of siblings, family economic status and sibling order. As a result of the analysis of qualitative data, it was found that students with higher cognitive awareness had more benefit from cognitive awareness strategies.