The effects of metacognitive mapping tool on the self-regulation skills of students, metacognitive awareness and achievement of these students in a web based education

The purpose of this study is to develop a metacognitive mapping tool which will support students? metacognition and to determine the effect of this tool on the students? self-regulation, metacognitive awareness and achievement. The independent variable of the study is the ?metacognitive mapping tool? which is used in a web based education environment. The dependent variables of the study are the level of the students? self-regulation skills, their metacognitive awareness and their level of achievement.The study was conducted in the spring semester of the 2010-2011 academic year in a duration of 8 years with the participation of 55 students taking the ?Database Management Systems? course within the third grade second semester program of the Department of Education on Computer Education Technologies in Gazi University Faculty of Education. During the application, pre-test and post-test research design was used. The students have randomly been assigned to web based education environments where the mapping tool were and were not present after equilibrating the students in terms of their level of self-regulation skills, metacognitive awareness and level of achievement.The web based educational environment and the metacognitive mapping tool used in the application has been prepared by using PHP programming language, and MySQL database management system. The metacognitive mapping tool has been developed based on the principles of planning according to metacognitive models, monitoring, self-assessment and reorganization stages. 6 assignments have been presented in order to encourage students to study and to ensure their regular use of the system. ?Scale of Self-Regulation Skills for Web based Education? which has been prepared by BAS (2007) has been used in the determination of the self-regulation skills of the students. Data related to the metacognitive awareness has been developed by Schraw and Dennison (1994) and has been obtained by ?Metacognitive Awareness Inventory? which has been adapted to Turkish by Akin, Abaci and Cetin (2007). An achievement test was developed in order to obtain the data related to the level of achievement before the test. The data obtained by the achievement test has been used while the level of achievements was being determined.According to the findings of the covariance analysis (ANCOVA) at the end of the eight-week application period, it has been observed that there is a significant difference between the average scores of the post-test self-regulation skills adjusted according to the pre-test scores of students in favor of the students working in the treatment group [F(1-52)=4.56,p<.05]. The findings of the covariance (ANCOVA) demonstrated that there is no presence of a significant difference between the post-test metacognitive awareness average scores adjusted according to the pre-test scores of the students [F(1-52)=.08,p<.05]. The findings of the covariance analysis (ANCOVA) also demonstrated that there is a significant difference between the post-test achievement average scores adjusted according to the pre-test scores of students in favor of students working in a treatment group [F(1-52)=7,p<.05].In accordance with the findings obtained through the analysis of the data, it has been observed that a metacognitive mapping tool included in the web based learning environments cause a positive effect on the self-regulation levels and achievement of students. The tool has not demonstrated any effects when metacognitive awareness levels are considered according to the experimental and control groups.