Barrientos Mauricio S, Valenzuela Pilar, Hojman Viviana, Reyes Gabriel
Cognitive Science Laboratory, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile.
Faculty of Psychology, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile.
Front Psychol. 2022 May 18;13:910132. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.910132. eCollection 2022.
Metacognitive ability has been described as an important predictor of several processes involved in learning, including problem-solving. Although this relationship is fairly documented, little is known about the mechanisms that could modulate it. Given its relationship with both constructs, we decided to evaluate the impact of self-knowledge on PS. In addition, we inspected whether emotional (self-reported anxiety) and interpersonal (attitudes towards social interdependence) variables could affect the relationship between metacognition and problem-solving. We tested a sample of 32 undergraduate students and used behavioural tasks and self-report questionnaires. Contrary to the literature, we found no significant relationship between metacognition and problem-solving performance, nor a significant moderating effect when including emotional and interpersonal variables in the model. In contrast, we observed a significant moderating model combining metacognition, self-reported anxiety and attitudes towards social interdependence. It was found that participants with high metacognition reported attitudes unfavourable towards interdependence when they felt high anxiety. These results suggest that already anxious individuals with high metacognition would prefer to work alone rather than with others, as a coping mechanism against further anxiety derived from cooperation. We hypothesise that in anxiogenic contexts, metacognition is used as a tool to compare possible threats with one's own skills and act accordingly, in order to maximise one's own performance. Further studies are needed to understand how metacognition works in contexts adverse to learning.
元认知能力被认为是学习中涉及的几个过程（包括解决问题）的重要预测指标。尽管这种关系已有充分记载，但对于可能调节它的机制却知之甚少。鉴于其与这两个概念的关系，我们决定评估自我认知对解决问题的影响。此外，我们考察了情绪变量（自我报告的焦虑）和人际变量（对社会相互依存的态度）是否会影响元认知与解决问题之间的关系。我们对32名本科生样本进行了测试，并使用了行为任务和自我报告问卷。与文献相反，我们发现元认知与解决问题的表现之间没有显著关系，在模型中纳入情绪和人际变量时也没有显著的调节作用。相反，我们观察到一个由元认知、自我报告的焦虑和对社会相互依存的态度组成的显著调节模型。结果发现，元认知水平高的参与者在感到高度焦虑时，对相互依存持不利态度。这些结果表明，已经焦虑的高元认知个体更愿意独自工作而不是与他人合作，作为一种应对因合作产生的进一步焦虑的机制。我们假设，在产生焦虑的情境中，元认知被用作一种工具，将可能的威胁与自己的技能进行比较，并据此采取行动，以最大限度地提高自己的表现。需要进一步的研究来了解元认知在不利于学习的情境中是如何起作用的。
