Adolescents' Metacognitive Knowledge Monitoring and Academic Help Seeking: The Role of Motivation Orientation.
This study examined the impact of motivation orientation on the accuracy of metacognitive knowledge monitoring; the impact of metacognitive knowledge monitoring on academic help seeking; and the impact of motivation orientation on academic help seeking behavior, and the joint impact of metacognitive knowledge monitoring and motivational orientation on help-seeking. Data was obtained from 137 students. Results revealed subjects with higher knowledge monitoring ability reviewed more words which they had originally estimated not knowing. Participants with high knowledge monitoring ability reviewed more nonsense words. No significant results were obtained for the impact of motivation orientation on academic help seeking, or the joint impact of metacognitive knowledge monitoring, and motivational orientation on help seeking. ********** In recent years there has been a good deal of discussion in American education regarding students' metacognition, achievement motivation, and academic help-seeking as they relate to learning. Metacognition has been defined as the ability to monitor, evaluate, and make plans for one's learning (Brown, 1978; Flavell, 1979). Achievement motivation refers to the driving force for students' learning goals, and the activities they choose to engage in to reach those goals (Rothstein, 1990). Help-seeking, according to Nelson-Le Gall (1981), is intended to increase mastery and competence by obtaining assistance necessary to accomplish tasks independently. Students' achievement motivation has been found to be correlated with high levels of academic achievement (Ablard & Lipschultz, 1998; Grant & Dweck, 2003). Furthermore, seeking academic help from teachers and peers is an instrumental behavior in the achievement domains of school and work (R. E. Ames, 1983, Butlet, 1998). A mastery goal orientation has been found to be related positively to adaptive help seeking (Ryan & Pintrich, 1997). Performance goal orientations have been associated with the avoidance of help-seeking (Middleton & Midley, 1997; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997). Moreover, help-seeking is a characteristic of students capable of monitoring and evaluating what they learn (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1990). In the competitive culture in which we live, people's lives are influenced by how much they accomplish. From the time children begin school, they are subjected to a number of learning tasks that require effort to master. Being motivated to learn about specific subjects throughout one's education may often be a challenging task. Motivation has a degree of special urgency, however, during the college years, because it is connected to individuals' future careers. In the college and university setting excellence is often defined in terms of an individual's achievement. The amount of effort one exerts in studying is relevant to learning because learning is an active process requiring conscious and deliberate activity. How motivated a student is to do well while in college has a great impact on knowledge acquired, grades obtained, and subsequently on employment or acceptance to graduate school. Surprisingly, lack of motivation to learn has become a pervasive phenomenon affecting a great number of college students (Karabenick, 2003; Reeve & Deci, 1996). A motivated student is conceptualized as someone who is actively engaged in the learning process. Research has shown that motivated students approach challenging tasks eagerly, exert intense effort, use active problem-solving strategies, and persist in the face of difficulty (Elliot & Dweck, 1988). Furthermore, motivated students focus on developing understanding and mastering skills, are enthusiastic regarding their academic tasks, and take pride in their achievements. On the other hand, students who are not motivated are passive, tend to exert little effort, and give up easily. When they do exert effort it is for extrinsic reasons, such as to avoid punishment or to obtain some reward unrelated to the task itself. …