2。 Literature review

2。1 Metacognitive awareness

2。1。1 The concept and classification of metacognitive awareness

Metacognition has been identified in many different perspectives in the literature since mid-1970s。 It was first introduced by John Flavell in cognitive psychology as “one's knowledge concerning one's own cognitive processes or anything related to them” (Flavell, 1976, p232) or simply, “thinking about thinking” (Flavell, 1979, p906)。 Since then, a series of subsequent attempts to define metacognition have sprung up。 Wenden (1998, 1999) viewed it as a complicated thinking process that requires active and dynamic control over one's cognitive process。 Schraw&Dennison (1994) defined it as “the ability to reflect upon, understand, and control one's learning”。 It is also regarded as “awareness and management of one's own thought”(Kuhn&Dean, 2004) and “the ability to make one's thinking visible” (Anderson, 2012)。 

From all of these conceptualizations, it is obvious that matecognition consists of two components: one is knowledge-based and the other is process-based。 The former one is concerning being aware of one's own thinking and seeing the different possibilities when dealing with problems。 Whereas, the latter is about choosing strategies and supervising actions when during the problem-solving process。 It is all about having a conscious, active and reflective attitude along the learning path。 Namely, metacognition commonly contains one's knowledge about cognition and control of the cognition。 Therefore, the two main components of the metacognition that have been adopted by most of the scholars (Jacobs&Paris, 1987; Paris & Winograd, 1990; Schraw & Dennnison, 1994; Wenden, 1998,1999; Anderson, 2002) now are just knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition。 来自优Y尔L论W文Q网wWw.YouERw.com 加QQ7520~18766

In summary, the framework of metacognition comprises knowledge and regulatory skills which enable students to set and plan objectives and strategies, monitor learning procedures, strategy use and task performance while doing learning tasks or tackling problem-solving activities, and evaluate learning outputs and strategies that are employed for achieving goals(Feiz, 2016)。 That is, metacognition enables students to be more strategic in the process of learning new information。 

There is no denying that metacognition plays so significant a role in successful learning。 And such an awareness, naturally, can contribute to students' progress in their learning process。 Thus, a set of experiments came out and tried to examine metacognitive awareness and how it works in connection to academic performance。 

2。1。2 Studies on metacognitive awareness 

In 1994, Schraw and Dennison created the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) to measure and estimate adults' metacognitive awareness。 In this study, they investigated whether the two components, knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition, were related to each other and whether either of them was related to metacognitive performance。 According to their conclusion, the findings demonstrated that there was an important relationship between knowledge and regulation of cognition, and between the MAI and test performance。 Narang, D。 and Saini, S。 (2013) undertook the study about the impact of metacognition on academic performance among rural adolescents (13-16 years old)。 The results illustrated that with high level of metacognition, the majority of courses also performed above average in academics。 Öz (2014) found that both knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition markedly predicted academic achievement of prospective English teachers。 And the regulation of cognition, as a predictor of academic achievement, showed a stronger effect on their performance。 In 2016, Öz further studied the role that metacognitive awareness plays in the enhancement of academic motivation among prospective English teachers in a Turkish context。