The Impact of Metacognitive Awareness on Class Performance in Financial Accounting Courses

INTRODUCTIONMetacognition is defined as "thinking about your thinking" (Falvell, 1979) According to Schraw and Dennison (1994) metacognition is referred to as an individual's ability to understand, control, and reflect upon one's learning. Metacognition explores what individuals know, or believe that they know about what they learn, how they assess their acquisition of knowledge, the accuracy of their self assessments, and how the further learning is guided (Schmidt Ford, 2003) Previous research indicates that the functions of metacognition are two folds: monitoring and control. Specifically, monitoring includes the identification of learning objectives, assessment of learning process, and prediction of learning outcomes. On the other hand, control function refers to an individual's decisions on resource allocation and measures to achieve learning goals (Schmidt Ford, 2003) Metacognition has important implications for learning and self regulation. Thus metacognitive awareness leads students more conscious of what they are learning and more strategic in their learning process.Advances in information technology have impacted on, and will continue changing the dimensions of education. To meet the demand for effective and efficient learning, higher education institutions have been extensively utilizing new technologies for course design and delivery. The various applications present both opportunities and challenges to accounting educators. Research suggests that the adoption of computer assisted teaching should incorporate considerations of various factors, including but not limited to motivations, student learning, course contents, and more broadly, the possibility of an accounting education reform (Boyce, 1999) Numerous studies provide empirical evidence in respect to the effect of computer technology. For instance, Mcdowall and Jackling (2006) find that students' positive perceptions of Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) may lead to improved learning outcomes. Potter and Johnston (2006) investigate the connection between accounting students' performance and an interactive online learning system named "MarlinaLS" Using a sample of Australian college students, they find that MarlinaLS usage is positively related to examination performance (Potter and Johnston, 2006) In the literature review of a recent study, Gavira and Omoteso (2013) summarize the positive consequences of E learning, and also suggest educators to approach teaching in the Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) with caution. Their discussion of possible VLE pitfalls provides insight on the importance of an instructor's role in the selection and application of instructional technology in specific courses (Gavira and Omoteso, 2013).Online assignments powered by web based homework systems are widely used in financial accounting courses. These systems provide students a platform to gain a good understanding of the concepts and to access extensive practice to improve problem solving skills. Besides flexibility in location and time, such systems provide students much control over their learning contents and intensity. Students' control over their learning process presents opportunity for educators and researchers to explore methods and measures to improve student learning experience and outcome. User Statistics collected from these systems also offer an initiative for researchers to access data related to a student's metacognitive awareness level, an important predictor of student achievement in a self regulated learning environment. Using the objective data from a web based homework system, this paper finds that metacognitive awareness is positively associated with class performance, suggesting that students with higher metacognitive awareness perform better than those who are unaware.The research examines the relationship between student performance and metacognition, assessed by objective data from a Learning Management System (LMS)