An investigation of teacher candidates' metacognitive skills

The aim of the study is to determine whether the metacognitive skill levels of the English language teacher candidates change depending on the gender, grade level and the graduated high school type and reveal the relationship between the metacognitive skills and the academic success. The study group of the research in relational screening model consists of 210 teacher candidates and "Metacognitive Skills Scale" developed by Altindag (2008) has been used as the data collection tool. As a result of the study, it has been revealed that the metacognitive skills of the teacher candidates have been in middle level and it has shown a meaningful different for the advantage of the female students and it has not shown any difference depending on the type of the graduates school and the grade level. A positive and low-level relationship has been detected between the metacognitive skill levels and the academic success averages. The findings of this study have revealed the contribution of the metacognitive skills to the academic success and therefore, to the learning and it has been suggested that the activities improving these skills should be frequently applied in the learning environment. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.