Scaffolding Students’ Metacognition for Effective Online Learning

Abstract

Assisting students’ metacognition especially in online learning environment is a vital concern among researchers and educators. This study explores the effectiveness of scaffolding students’ metacognition and investigates its impact on students’ performance in online learning environment. This study used a framework of metacognitive scaffolding that focused on two mechanisms which are supporting students’ reflective writing and guiding students to focus in the process of learning. These mechanisms will be given through a set of questions prompted by instructors in Facebook discussions. This study used one group pre-experimental research design. A total of 23 undergraduate students were involved in the study. Students were asked to be engaged in purposeful critical discourse in order to solve questions about topics related to Telecommunication and Networking. Results showed that there is a significant difference on students’ performance before and after the instillation of instructors’ metacognitive scaffolding in online learning where p < 0.05. Thus, this study suggests that the framework of metacognitive scaffolding is imperative with regards to foster students’ metacognition and student’s performance in online learning environment.