An Investigation into Metacognitive Awareness Level: a Comparative Study of Iranian and Lithuanian University Students

The presented article reports on an empirical and comparative study that aimed at investigating the overall level of metacognitive awareness of Iranian and Lithuanian university students, as well as its weakest and strongest sub-components and related metacognitive awareness inventory (MAI) items. To obtain a detailed measure of the levels of metacognitive awareness of the two groups, with a total sample size of 755, Schraw and Dennison’s (1994) MAI was used. Data comparisons show that Lithuanian university students have a medium level of metacognitive awareness, while a low level has been detected in Iranian students. Upon examining the subcomponents of the knowledge of cognition component, the mean score obtained for declarative knowledge was found to be highest in both groups. Although in the Iranian group the lowest mean score was related to conditional knowledge, in the Lithuanian group it was procedural knowledge. Considering the regulation of cognition component, the highest mean score was obtained in the planning subcomponent in the Iranian students and in the evaluation subcomponent in the Lithuanian students, while the lowest mean score was obtained in the monitoring subcomponent in the Iranian students and in the debugging subcomponent in the students. The results of this study may contribute to improving the quality of teaching and learning.