The development of metacognitive knowledge from childhood to young adulthood: Major trends and educational implications

In this chapter, major trends in the development of metacognitive competences and its relationship to various aspects of cognitive/academic performance are described, with a focus on metamemory and reading comprehension. In a first step, classic and more recent theoretical models of metacognitive competences are presented that elaborate on the development of the declarative and procedural components of metacognition. The declarative component focuses on explicit and verbalizable knowledge, whereas the procedural component deals with monitoring and self-regulation processes. Common measures of both components are presented next, followed by a description of major developmental trends, as indicated by cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on developmental differences and changes in declarative knowledge, memory and comprehension monitoring, and self-regulation. Furthermore, research findings illustrating the relationship between metacognitive competences and cognitive performance in childhood and adolescence are presented for the domains of memory and reading comprehension, respectively. The final section focuses on educational implications of research on metacognition, underlining the importance of teacher behavior in the classroom and special instruction programs for students' acquisition of metacognitive competences.