Improving Grades through the Completion of a Guided Metacognitive Exercise for College Students in Fall 2020 at a Regional Mississippi University

Abstract

This study aimed to learn if a guided metacognitive exercise helped students analyze their past behavior in their preparation for assessments to influence their future practices and performance on assessments. Specifically, this study used a quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group design which followed two groups of student participants longitudinally over the course of one semester. Quantitative data was collected to understand if the completion of a guided metacognitive exercise, the Study Plan, had an impact upon the experimental groups’ subsequent grades. The theory of metacognition supported the assertion that completion of a guided metacognitive task, like the Study Plan, could positively influence the subsequent grades for undergraduate students at a regional Mississippi university. There were two paired sections of eight different courses from which the sample of 79 undergraduate college students was drawn during the fall semester of 2020. The research questions asked if there was a difference in the final course grades, final exam scores, and the scores before and after the experimental group (n = 32) completed Study Plan compared to the same scores of the control group (n = 47). These questions were analyzed using independent samples Wests comparing the means of the control and experimental groups, as well as paired-samples t- tests and the one-way ANOVA which compared means of two tests taken by the control and experimental groups before and after the experimental group completed the Study Plan. The nonsignificant results from this study suggested that student completion of a single guided metacognitive exercise without feedback or other metacognitive intervention had no significant impact on grades.