The role of metacognitive skills in learning to solve problems

Study I: Pilot 73
Finally, the other categories present in the coding scheme at the metalevel
have not been modified. They are directly applicable to the data
in the protocols. In table 4.4 examples of utterances for each category
in the new coding scheme are given.
Category
Example
GROUP
“But what do you think of this?”
TOOL
“It is described in the handbook
KM on the lower shelf”
KM
“I think we have to increase knowledge
retention in the marketing department”
Cognitive
“We can try to deal with the production
process”
Reflect on problem
“This problem has nothing to do
with KM”
Comprehension monitoring “I do not understand”
Generate strategy
“I think we cannot do anything for
this specific problem”
Predicting consequences
“This is the easiest path through
the KM model”
Planning
“We will continue with the next
step”
Monitoring “But haven’t we done this already?”
Plausibility
“This is not logical in view of the
previous”
Evaluating problem solving “Beyond the event we also have to
check how the company is doing in
general”
Table 4.4.
Coding scheme with examples of utterances for each category.
In conclusion, the main purpose of performing protocol analysis was
to check whether the initial metacognitive skills as identified in the literature
could be used to code the chat protocols. Since it concerns group
problem solving activities, it is of importance to include the group aspect
in the coding scheme. This is achieved by adding the GROUP focus next
to the TOOL and KM focus. Also it is shown that metacognitive activities
indeed occur in communication protocols derived from collaborative
learning settings.