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Overview
What this guidance report covers
This guidance report reviews the best available research to offer teachers and senior leaders practical advice on the most effective strategies for supporting pupils to develop their metacognitive skills and knowledge. The report has recommendations in seven areas and examples of what the strategies might look like in the classroom.
There is a strong body of research from psychology and education demonstrating the importance of metacognition and self-regulation to effective pupil learning.
The EEF’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit, which summarises a large body of international evidence, rates ‘metacognition and self-regulation’ as a high-impact, low-cost approach to improving the attainment of disadvantaged learners.
Teachers can use metacognitive and self-regulatory approaches to support pupils to think about learning more explicitly. Often, this is by teaching them specific strategies for planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning.
Metacognition and self-regulation strategies appear to be more effective when embedded in a school’s curriculum and a specific subject lesson.