The research group led by the PhD in Psychology, Antonio Gutiérrez de Blume, from the University of Georgia (USA) and the PhD in Psychology, Diana Montoya, from the University of Manizales (Colombia) brought together researchers dedicated to lines such as cognitive psychology, neuroscience, metacognition and the reading system, among which is the Usach professor, Ana Ramírez Balmaceda.
Enzo Borroni, USACh Journalist.- The renowned international publication Metacognition and Learning, published in its pages the research “Regulatory data and standardization of an international protocol for the evaluation of metacognition in Spanish-speaking university students: a structural analysis”, of which the professor of undergraduate from our House of Studies, Ana Ramírez Balmaceda.
The importance of this scientific diffusion is that this journal is the most prominent internationally on the subject of metacognition.
Professor Ramírez Balmaceda commented that she was invited by the group leaders to participate in the research representing Chile.
“In this cross-cultural project, academics from different countries such as Colombia, Uruguay, the United States, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Peru and Bolivia are part. The research project began in 2020 and in it I have been able to share with great researchers, such as: Lilián Daset, Ariel Cuadro, Aníbal Puente Ferreras, Virginia Jiménez Rodríguez, among others”, remarked the professor of the Pedagogy career in Basic Education.
According to the teacher, the importance of metacognition for this study lies in the deeper understanding of the factors that influence, in this case in the context of Higher Education, but with the intention of continuing in future international research evaluating cognitive skills. cross-cultural studies of students of initial, basic and secondary education.
“The research succeeds in demonstrating that metacognitive knowledge and regulation do not appear to be universal constructs, even within cultures that share the same mother tongue and have some overlap in cultural norms and expectations. This was evident in the differences found in terms of subjective metacognitive knowledge and the regulation of cognition, given that some metacognitive abilities depend on culturally specific learning”, the researcher emphasized.
Results of the investigation
The study used a convenience sampling approach in which 1,461 university students from 12 Latin American and one European culture participated: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, and Uruguay.
The Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) (Schraw & Dennison, 1994) was applied to the students, through 52 items to assess the different components of metacognitive knowledge and cognition regulation in adults.
“Among the results obtained, it is shown that Peruvian undergraduate higher education participants, who are part of the study, report the lowest subjective metacognitive awareness, both for knowledge of cognition and for regulation of cognition compared to people from countries like Chile, Argentina, Spain, United States, Panama, Guatemala. In turn, Puerto Rican and Guatemalan students reported the highest subjective metacognitive awareness in both dimensions,” said the also PhD candidate in Psychology from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina).
Continuing with the results, he asserted that the Peruvian Higher Education students were the most accurate when judging the correct performance of vocabulary domain, while the Argentine and Costa Rican students tended to be the most accurate when judging the incorrect performance.
On the other hand, metacognitive vocabulary errors were found in a higher percentage in Panamanians and Puerto Ricans, tending to be the most confident in their answers, but being equivocal. In other words, they have the “illusion of knowing” having a confidence bias.
Regarding the metacognitive skills of probability and mathematical reasoning, the research indicates that students from Costa Rica, Mexico and Guatemala obtained higher metacognitive frequencies compared to countries such as Argentina, Chile, Peru and Mexico.
