Metacognitive strategies for developing complex geographical causal structures: an interventional study in the geography classroom
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Johannes Heuzeroth [1] ; Alexandra Budke [1]
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[1] University of Cologne
University of Cologne
Kreisfreie Stadt Köln, Alemania
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- Localización: EJIHPE: European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, ISSN 2174-8144, ISSN-e 2254-9625, Vol. 11, Nº. 2, 2021, págs. 382-404
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
This article examines the impact of applied metacognition on the development of geographical causal structures by students in the geography classroom. For that, three different metacognitive strategies were designed: a. action plan, activating meta-knowledge prior to problem-solving and simultaneously visualizing action steps for dealing with the task (A); b. circular thinking (C), a loop-like, question-guided procedure applied during the problem-solving process that supports and controls content-related and linguistic cognition processes; c. reflexion (R), aiming at evaluating the effectivity and efficiency of applied problem-solving heuristics after the problem-solving process and developing strategies for dealing with future tasks. These strategies were statistically tested and assessed as to their effectiveness on the development of complex geographical causal structures via a quasi-experimental pre-posttest design. It can be shown that metacognitive strategies strongly affect students’ creation of causal structures, which depict a multitude of elements and relations at a high degree of interconnectedness, thus enabling a contentually and linguistically coherent representation of system-specific properties of the human–environment system. On the basis of the discussion of the results, it will be demonstrated that metacognitive strategies can provide a significant contribution to initiating systemic thinking-competences and what the implications might be on planning and teaching geography lessons.
