Developing the level of metacognitive awareness of students with low academic performance. Pilot study conducted in the online learning environment

Abstract

"The aim of the study is to highlight the efficiency of a program of activities implemented to develop the level of learning metacognitive awareness of students with low academic performance. The study was conducted on a total of 28 students from the Faculty of Social Humanistic Sciences, University of Oradea, Romania, equally divided into two groups, experimental and control. The didactic strategy used for the experimental group used tools of the mind in activities having the role of support learning for the coursebook content units of Theory and Methodology of Teacher Training. The entire program of activities took place outside classes and seminars, in online. The research tool was Metacognitive Awareness Inventory, validated on the Romanian population by A. Glava, having a number of 53 items. The research findings partially validate the research hypothesis. The program of activities contributed to the improvement of the level of metacognitive awareness of the students in the experimental group, in the posttest stage as compared with the pretest. In the intergroup comparisons, in the posttest, there were statistically significant results only for the Information Management Strategies subscale, with higher mean values in the experimental group. The research findings emphasize the need for an active involvement of teachers, managers of universities in identifying and using teaching strategies to support students with low academic performance in learning, to reduce their risk of dropping out."