Measurement of Metacognitive Knowledge of Self, Task, and Strategies in Mathematics

The present study investigated the validity of the Metacognitive Knowledge in Mathematics Questionnaire (MKMQ), which taps the (1) metacognitive knowledge of the self (easiness/fluency vs. difficulty/lack of fluency the person has had in the past in basic mathematical notions); (2) the metacognitive knowledge of tasks (easy/low demands vs. difficult/high demands mathematical tasks), and (3) the metacognitive knowledge of strategies (cognitive/metacognitive strategies, competence-enhancing strategies, and avoidance strategies that serve coping with lack of fluency in mathematical task processing). The MKMQ was first administered to 311 junior high school students (grades 7 and 9) and then to 214 university students for crossvalidation. Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the presence of 7-first-order interrelated factors. In both samples the convergent validity was tested correlating the seven factors with measures of self-concept in mathematics and mathematical ability. Predictive ability was tested using regression analyses in which the criterion variables were mean performance and feelings of difficulty in the processing of three mathematical problems. The findings support the theoretical claim that experience of difficulty is playing a critical role in the organization of metacognitive knowledge.