Metacognition

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A broadcasting company conducted an experiment to find the secret of excelling in studies. The experimenter separated the students who obtained top ranks in the mock exam from the average students, and gave them memory tests. He showed them a list of 30 unrelated words at a rate of 3 seconds per word, and asked them to recall as many words as they could. As a result of the test, the two groups of students were approximately equal in their level of retention. Before the test, the experimenter let the students guess how many words they would be able to recall, and this caused a difference between them; the number of words that the academically excellent students recalled was almost the same as that of words that they had expected, but the average students showed a big difference, which was caused by their misunderstanding that they knew what they didn’t actually know just as they thought that they made a mistake on a question during the test even though they didn’t actually know the correct answer.

The difference between those two groups lies in their metacognition. Metacognition is a combination of two words—meta meaning beyond or behind and recognition meaning the act or process of knowing. The term metacognition refers to one’s awareness of what he knows and of what he doesn’t know. People with high levels of metacognition are not arrogant because they are always aware that they do not know everything. So they always try to learn something.

While walking the path of faith, we hope that we are better today than yesterday, and better torrmow than today. The starting point of our spiritual growth is the moment when we stop thinking that we know everything. If we recognize our shortcomings and ask God for power and help, our faith will gradually mature.

Improving metacognitive ability—this is the way to become an excellent student in faith.