Effect of Metacognition on Mathematical Reasoning among Secondary School Students

Abstract

Mathematical reasoning has become an essential tool for all students to cope with the challenges of the modern world. Therefore, the teachers of mathematics should use effective strategies for the developments of mathematical reasoning among their students. The present experimental study focuses on the assessment of the development of mathematical reasoning through metacognition among secondary school students. The major objective of the study was to assess the effect of metacognition on mathematical reasoning in the portion of arithmetic among secondary school students. The nature of this quantitative study was experimental and a pre-test
post-test non-equivalent control group was adopted as the research design of the study. Participants of the study were grade 9 students of a government school in Lahore city. There were 34 students in the experimental group and 37 students in the control group. A valid and reliable research instrument was developed for the measurement of mathematical reasoning. A pretest was conducted for participants of the control group and the experimental group. Metacognitive strategies were applied as an intervention for participants of the experimental group. Participants of the control group were taught mathematics without metacognitive strategies. The intervention lasted for the periods of 16 weeks. After the completion of the intervention, a post-test was conducted for the control group and experimental group. An independent samples t-test was applied to compare the mean scores of the control group and experimental group. A significant difference was found between the mean scores of the control group and the
experimental group. Participants of the experimental group got more score than participants of the control group. It was concluded that metacognition has a positive effect on the development of mathematical reasoning among secondary school students.