Parental Focus on 'Metacognition' That Distinguishes Top 1% Academic Performance

83.6% of Elementary School Parents Say "Metacognitive Skills Help Children's Learning"

As various non-face-to-face education programs have been strengthened due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, parents' interest in metacognition is increasing. Photo by Getty Images

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] As various non-face-to-face education programs have been strengthened due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, parents' interest in metacognition is increasing.

According to the industry on the 13th, the demand from parents who want to change their children's study methods because they repeatedly make mistakes on problems despite studying for long hours is rising. Lisa Son, a psychology expert and professor at Columbia University, emphasized that children with excellent learning abilities have activated metacognition, which is the ability to recognize what they know and do not know by themselves.

According to a survey conducted by Visang Education (CEO Yang Taehoe), an educational culture company, targeting 398 parents through the elementary school parent education information community 'Mom&Talk,' 83.6% of parents believe that 'metacognition' will help their children's learning, and 58% agree on the need to improve their children's study methods.

Regarding the survey results, when asked if they knew about 'metacognition,' which means the ability to distinguish between what one knows and does not know and make it their own, 40.7% answered 'I know the overall content,' and 34.7% answered 'I have heard of it but do not know well,' in that order. Both 'I do not know at all' and 'I know well' were tied at 12.3%. More than half of the respondents were aware of metacognition.

Do parents think that this metacognition will help their children's learning? When asked, 'Do you think metacognition will help your child's learning?' 55.5% answered 'Yes,' accounting for a high proportion. This was followed by 'Strongly agree' (28.1%) and 'Neutral' (15.1%). Only 1.0% answered 'No,' and 0.3% answered 'Not at all.' This means that 83.6% of parents believe metacognition will help their child's studies.

Many parents believed that metacognition would help their children's learning, but it was found that the study methods their children are currently using are closer to traditional learning methods. Photo by Visang Education

Although many parents thought metacognition would help their children's learning, the current study methods their children use were found to be close to traditional learning methods. Regarding 'methods mainly used by children when studying' (multiple answers allowed), 'solving problems through workbooks based on learned content' accounted for a high proportion at 92.0%. This was followed by 'underlining important content while reading textbooks' (35.8%), 'reviewing the day's lessons on the same day' (35.5%), 'summarizing learned content in notes' (29.8%), 'explaining studied concepts and content to parents' (28.4%), 'relearning only the parts not understood' (21.4%), 'repeatedly reviewing the day's lessons over several days' (18.7%), and 'others' (2.0%).

How do parents view the need to improve their children's current study methods? When asked, 'Do you think it is necessary to improve the study methods your child is currently using?' 51.0% answered 'Yes.' This was followed by 'Neutral' (36.9%), 'Strongly agree' (7.0%), 'No' (4.5%), and 'Not at all' (0.5%), confirming that about six out of ten parents agree on the need to improve their children's study methods. This result is interpreted as the traditional learning methods currently used by children not translating into actual academic performance.

Experts emphasize that metacognition has a decisive impact on improving children's grades. The 'metacognitive learning method,' which involves children accurately distinguishing what they know and do not know and filling in the gaps based on that result, is considered most important.

Regarding metacognitive ability necessary for metacognitive learning methods, when parents were asked, 'How do you think your child's metacognitive ability is?' 56.5% answered 'Average.' This was followed by 'Good' (24.6%), 'Insufficient' (12.3%), 'Very good' (3.8%), and 'Very insufficient' (2.8%). Most parents believed their children had 'average' or higher metacognitive ability. Since metacognition is a capability that children can develop themselves, it is now necessary to help children cultivate metacognition on their own and internalize it into their learning methods.

Kim Taejin, head of the Learning Innovation Core Group at Visang Education, said, "As concerns about learning loss have increased due to COVID-19, it is important for students to independently check their learning level through metacognition and clearly set their learning direction, which is a self-directed learning capability." He added, "Breaking away from the existing framework that assumes information is automatically input into the brain by simply studying repetitively for a long time, one must fully internalize what they have learned based on metacognition to achieve the desired results."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.