Executive function and metacognition: Towards a unifying framework of cognitive self-regulation

By Claudia M. Roebers. 2017

418 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Executive function and metacognition are higher-order cognitive processes that undergo steady improvements throughout childhood. They are highly relevant to daily functioning in various domains, including academic achievement. Both concepts have been intensively researched, but surprisingly little literature has sought to connect them theoretically and empirically. In the present review, I elaborate on the similarities between these concepts from a developmental perspective, including the definitions, developmental timetables, factors that lead to changes over time, and relations to academic achievement and intelligence. Simultaneously, the differences between these two domains of cognitive development are discussed. These include, in particular, the relative neglect of quantifying monitoring within research on executive functions and the disregard for the neuropsychological underpinnings of metacognition. Finally, this paper presents several avenues for future research and proposes a possible unifying framework of cognitive self-regulation that integrates executive function and metacognition and may lead to a better understanding of the emergence of cognitive self-regulation in development.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c2844a6cb7d7588fb46a0f4fd9cf89b39bdd620c

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Virtual and augmented reality effects on K-12, higher and tertiary education students’ twenty-first century skills (2018, background): “Executive function and metacognition are higherorder cognitive processes which are highly relevant to daily functioning in various domains including academic achievement and play a key role in self-regulated learning (Roebers 2017).”
Generative Learning: Which Strategies for What Age? (2020, background): “They follow a late-maturing developmental trajectory similar to that of executive functions, and depend on but are not fully determined by them (Roebers 2017).”
Metacognition in Psychology (2019, background): “Not surprisingly, monitoring and controlling one’s thoughts engage similar brain regions as those engaged by executive functions (Roebers, 2017).”