CHEMISTRY SELF-EFFICACY BELIEFS AS PREDICTORS OF STUDENTS' METACOGNITIVE SKILLS WHEN SOLVING CHEMISTRY PROBLEMS

Abstract

This paper aims to explore (1) students’ chemistry self-efficacy beliefs and metacognitive skills during problem solving in chemistry, (2) a potential significant difference of chemistry self-efficacy beliefs and levels of metacognitive skills in accordance with subject fields and, (3) the level of chemistry self-efficacy beliefs as a predictor of metacognitive skills in the course of solving problems. For the specified purposes, “Metacognitive Activities Inventory” and “College Chemistry Self-Efficacy Scale” were administered to 80 undergraduate students, majoring in the Departments of Chemistry and Chemistry Education. This study employed the correlational research model as a type of quantitative research design. The results of the study reveal that students maintain high levels of chemistry self-efficacy as well as metacognitive skills when solving problems in chemistry. Regarding their subject fields, it has been observed that a significant difference exists merely in scores of “self-efficacy for psychomotor skills (SPS)” beliefs. The analyses also have shown that the levels of students’ metacognitive skills during problem solving predict solely the variable of “self-efficacy for cognitive skills (SCS)”, which accounts for 18.7 % of the total variance.