THE CORRELATION BETWEEN METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS AND THINKING STYLES OF PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS

Abstract

Metacognition is an umbrella term encompassing thinking and memory, learning, motivation, and cognitive development as indicated by Metcalfe & Shimamura (1994). As is generally believed, metacognition has direct linkage with higher order thinking skills, which is all about regulating and functioning on cognitive processes of learning. According to Livingstone (2003: 2), “activities such as planning how to approach a given learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating progress towards the completion of ‘that’ task is metacognitive in nature.” As to the educational practices, learners thinking styles and metacognitive awareness should be attached importance in the sense that both are considered influential factors on learning and thinking. Therefore, the current study aims to scrutinize this possible relationship that takes place in foreign language education specifically. For this purpose, a representative group of 121 pre-service EFL teachers enrolled in English Literature Department was the participant group of this study. Thinking Styles Inventory (TSI) and Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) were used to collect data. The results were statistically analyzed through the application of SPSS 22.0 version. Based on the findings of the study, it can be said that the participants have a moderate level of metacognition, the most prominent thinking styles are legislative, judicial, monarchic, and anarchic thinking styles, and legislative, executive, monarchic, and internal thinking styles predict metacognition.   

Keywords: metacognitive awareness, thinking styles, pre-service EFL teachers, English language teaching