Are there differences between first-grade children’s display of metacognition and self-regulation when engaged in a graphic production task and when later revising it? The complementary roles of production and revision at the beginning of schooling

Abstract

In recent years, there has been considerable growth in evidence that open-ended, challenging, and autobiographical tasks may provide better opportunities to evidence how young children exhibit metacognition and self-regulation. This research examines possible differences in children’s metacognition and self-regulation between two ecological valid tasks. Data from 32 in-depth interview sessions with 16 first-grade children were analyzed: two sessions for each child (i.e., one session for a graphic production task and one session for the corresponding deferred revision task). We analyzed indicators of metacognitive knowledge (i.e., knowledge of persons, tasks, and strategies), metacognitive regulation (i.e., planning, monitoring, control, and evaluation), and emotional and motivational regulation (i.e., emotional and motivational monitoring and emotional and motivational control) using Cambridgeshire Independent Learning (C.Ind.Le) Coding Framework (Whitebread et al. Metacognition and Learning, 4, 63–85, 2009). Overall, children were significantly more likely to display metacognitive knowledge in the production task, whereas in the deferred revision task, they were more likely to display metacognitive regulation. Specifically, children were more likely to show knowledge of strategies during the production task, whereas in the deferred revision task, they were more likely to display monitoring, evaluation, and emotional and motivational control. Both open-ended, challenging, and autobiographical tasks are suggested as valuable tools when combined with one another, offering complementary insights and helping make children’s metacognition and self-regulation more visible to themselves, educators, and researchers.