Metacognition

Metacognition, the ability to think about one’s own thinking, has been a subject of philosophical inquiry since ancient times, yet is only more recently coined as a term and investigated empirically. The main components of metacognition are commonly held to be metacognitive knowledge (declarative, procedural, and conditional) and metacognitive regulation (monitoring, planning, and evaluation). Together these can enhance the individual learner’s and researcher’s effectiveness as well as the effectiveness of a team. Since learning and the acquisition of expertise in a domain is associated with specific changes in the cognitive processing of information and—mostly implicit—underlying assumptions, knowing and regulating these further enhances expertise. Such metacognition is particularly relevant in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, for metacognizing about one’s representations of knowledge and about assumptions is an important stepping stone for integrating—disciplinary and stakeholder—perspectives. Metacognition is even more important in collaborative teams. In such cases, mental representations of the team, its tasks, its research process and its goals are additional contents for individual and joint metacognition. Team collaboration is supported with metacognition and subsequent dialogue about its results.