“an awareness of what skills, strategies, and resources are needed to perform a task effectively; and the ability to use self-regulatory mechanisms to ensure successful completion of a task”
Flavell (1978) was the first to define metacognition when he said it was "knowledge that takes as its object or regulates any aspect of any cognitive endeavor.” Brown and Baker (1984) further defined the idea of metacognitive knowledge by emphasizing a difference between static and strategic knowledge. Static knowledge, according to Brown and Baker, is what people are able to verbalize about cognition; whereas, strategic knowledge consists of the strategies that people use to regulate a particular cognitive activity. These strategies consist of planning- figuring out how to begin or continue; predicting – estimating how much will be remembered or understood or how much time it will take to complete a particular cognitive task; guessing – hypothesizing an answer before reaching a complete cognitive solution; and monitoring- continually deciding how well progress is being made toward the accomplishment of some cognitive goal.
Self-appraisal of cognitions comprises reflections about learners' understanding, abilities and affective state during the learning process, while self-management refers to 'metacognitions in action'; that is, mental processes that help to 'orchestrate aspects of problem solving' (Paris and Winograd 1990: 8)
Kluwe (1987) refined the concept of metacognition by noting two characteristics: the thinker knows something about their own and others' thought processes, and the thinker can pay attention to and change their own thinking. This latter type of metacognition Kluwe calls 'executive processes'. Hacker (1998) points out the difference between 'cognitive tasks' (remembering things learned earlier that might help with the current task or problem) and 'metacognitive tasks' (monitoring and directing the process of problem-solving), stressing the importance of learning more about thinking.
Metacognition becomes essential when tasks are more challenging. This may occur at any stage in a contemplative situation from the beginning to the end. Hence metacognition has been strongly linked with problem solving where problems are usually not of any standard type.
Metacognition is used to refer to the awareness individuals have of their own thinking; their evaluation of thinking; and their regulation of that thinking (Wilson, 2001). This definition is consistent with existing literature but also extends that literature. These three functions of metacognition: awareness, evaluation and regulation require careful specification.
Metacognitive awareness relates to individuals’ awareness of where they are in the learning process or in the process of solving a problem, of their content-specific knowledge, and of their knowledge about their personal learning or problem solving strategies.
Metacognitive evaluation refers to judgements made regarding one’s thinking processes, capacities and limitations as these are employed in a particular situation or as self-attributes.
Metacognitive regulation occurs when individuals make use of their metacognitive skills to direct their knowledge and thinking. Metacognitive regulation draws upon individuals’ knowledge (about self and strategies, including how and why they use particular strategies) and uses executive skills (such as planning, self-correcting, setting goals) to optimise the use of their own cognitive resources.