Metacognition and Work Performance: The Key to High Success

Baltas Group

Metacognition is defined as the individual’s capacity to understand, monitor and regulate their own thinking processes. The concept was first put forward by John Flavell. Flavell defines metacognition as “the individual’s own cognitive activities and the ability to control these activities” and according to him, metacognition enables understanding learning processes, conscious control over cognitive processes and optimizing these processes.¹

In the years following Flavell’s studies, Brown emphasized that metacognition is effective not only on individual learning but also on problem solving and decision-making processes. Brown stated that metacognitive skills are critical for improving the performance of students, employees and leaders.²

The effects of metacognition have also been examined at the group and organizational level. For example, Gurtner and colleagues have shown that metacognitive awareness at the team level increases cooperation and problem-solving capacity within the team.³ In the organizational context, Argyris and Schön have stated that metacognition is an important tool for companies to improve their learning and adaptation processes.⁴

Components of metacognition

Metacognition is divided into two basic components: metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation.

Metacognitive knowledge refers to an individual’s knowledge of their own learning processes. When an employee realizes their own strengths and areas of development, their learning styles and needs, metacognitive knowledge comes into play. This type of awareness allows the individual to manage their workload and work more strategically. For example, when an individual determines the time period in which they are most productive in their own learning process, they can use this information to plan their workday. Industrial psychologists often offer employees self-assessment tools or mentoring programs to increase such awareness. At the same time, metacognitive knowledge involves employees understanding the nature of tasks and knowing which strategies would be appropriate for these tasks. Being able to evaluate the complexity of a task and presenting an approach accordingly directly affects both individual and team performance. For example, a team leader’s ability to correctly analyze the priorities of a project ensures that team members move in the right direction. At this point, training programs or decision-making strategies can be designed to help employees and teams make better decisions. For a company, this is the key to ensuring that employees are more effective not only on an individual level but also on a team level. For example, learning new metacognitive strategies in times of crisis can increase the capacity of teams to cope with stress and strengthen organizational resilience. As a result, metacognitive knowledge is an indispensable tool for the success of both individuals and organizations in the modern business world. In business life, this awareness enables individuals to work more efficiently and strategically.

1. Knowing your strengths and areas of development: A sales representative realizing that their persuasiveness is strong but that they are lacking in technical issues is a reflection of metacognitive knowledge. This awareness allows the representative to receive training to gain more technical knowledge and to direct customer meetings by highlighting their strengths.
2. Understanding work habits and preferences: A project manager can plan important meetings and tasks that require strategic decisions in the morning hours because they know that they are more productive. This awareness optimizes time management and increases the quality of results.
3. Managing learning processes: When a software developer knows which learning methods are more effective for them while learning a new programming language (for example, realizing that they use visual methods more), they progress faster in this process. This increases their job performance and adaptability.
4. Determining strategies suitable for tasks: A human resources manager implements this strategy by knowing that certain structured question sets are more efficient to analyze candidates' interview performances in recruitment processes. This both saves time and creates a fairer evaluation process.
5. Leveraging feedback: A team leader can gather information about what aspects they can improve with the feedback they receive and seize the opportunity to improve their team management skills. For example, if they realize that they need to be more open in their communication within the team, they can take proactive measures in this area.

Metacognitive regulation refers to the ability of an individual to monitor, evaluate, and change their thinking processes when necessary. This process has a direct impact on individuals' basic cognitive functions such as decision making, problem solving, and learning. In the business world, metacognitive regulation plays a critical role in increasing the efficiency of individuals and organizations. By consciously monitoring their thinking processes, a manager or employee can develop more effective strategies and make conscious choices to change or improve existing strategies. Metacognitive regulation helps individuals to be more careful and accurate in their decision-making processes, contributing to the production of more accurate and faster solutions at the organizational level. It also allows employees to develop their problem-solving skills; because individuals can evaluate which methods are more effective and develop more creative solutions by observing the thinking strategies they use. This regulation also plays an important role in individuals' learning processes. Employees can manage information in more efficient ways by metacognitively evaluating their learning strategies. In this way, faster progress can be made in personal and professional development areas.

Personova and metacognition

The relationship between personality and metacognition provides important clues about how individuals perceive, organize, and control their learning processes, as personality traits can shape many cognitive processes, from accessing metacognitive knowledge to using metacognitive regulation strategies. In this article, we will focus on two personality dimensions that are closely related to metacognition.

Openness and metacognition: The metacognitive regulation of a person with high openness is generally more flexible, creative and prone to developing cognitive strategies that are diverse. Openness; Since it includes characteristics such as being open to learning, thinking innovatively and valuing new experiences, it can positively affect an individual's metacognitive skills in these respects. The desire to explore and the sense of curiosity can help develop an individual's metacognitive knowledge. Since individuals with high openness are also open to new information and experiences, they are willing to try various learning methods in order to develop their metacognitive regulation skills. They can develop new strategies by adopting the trial-and-error method and continuously optimize their learning processes. Thanks to their cognitive flexibility, they can not only evaluate existing information, but also approach from different perspectives and produce creative solutions in problem-solving processes. Creativity often requires coping with uncertainty; therefore, individuals with high openness can manage uncertainty more easily thanks to their metacognitive regulation skills. However, high openness can have potential disadvantages. Being open to different ideas and possibilities can sometimes cause their attention to be distracted. Since they tend to think about many different solutions, they may have difficulty focusing on a specific strategy or goal. This situation can unnecessarily complicate metacognitive regulation and slow down progress in learning processes. When considering too many options, individuals can sometimes postpone making decisions or experience unnecessary indecision.

Agreeableness and metacognition: The metacognitive regulation skills of individuals with high agreeableness are generally shaped by their tendency to be in harmony with others, to show empathy, and to cooperate. Situations where agreeableness is high allow individuals to be more open in their interactions with others and to value collective thinking processes more. These characteristics have advantages and disadvantages over metacognitive regulation. Individuals with high agreeableness can develop their metacognitive regulation skills by adapting them to the dynamics within the group. They can develop individual and collective strategies by combining different thinking styles to achieve a common goal. This can make learning processes richer and more efficient. Being sensitive to the perspectives and feelings of others increases the ability to receive feedback from others and to incorporate this feedback into thinking processes in metacognitive regulation processes. In work groups, education, or professional settings, these individuals can often benefit from the thought processes of team members to improve their own thinking strategies. As a disadvantage, individuals with high agreeableness may tend to be overly attuned to the thoughts and feelings of others. During the metacognitive regulation process, individuals may focus too much on the ideas of others rather than developing their own strategies, which may limit their ability to think independently. This may lead to the risk of relying more on external influences in the decision-making process. Not being able to confidently implement one’s own strategies and approaches in order to please others or maintain harmony in the group may negatively affect productivity.

Conclusion

Metacognition enables an individual to gain conscious control over their cognitive processes and plays a critical role in many areas, from learning to problem solving, from individual development to organizational change. Adult learning is the application of new knowledge built on past knowledge to solve complex problems in today's world and its reorganization in this context. As the Baltaş Group, when we carried out the first pioneering studies and collaborations on adult learning and e-learning, we had the opportunity to address this issue in detail. For more comprehensive information on the relationship between metacognition and learning, you can review our issue of Kaynak Magazine, titled E-Learning, at the link https://kaynakbaltas.com/dergiler/e-ogrenme/.

References:

1. Flavell JH. Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: a new area of cognitive–developmental inquiry. Am Psychol. 1979; 34(10): 906-911.
2. Brown AL. Metacognition, executive control, self-regulation, and other more mysterious mechanisms. Kitap bölümü: Weinert FE, Kluwe RH, eds. Metacognition, Motivation, and Understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum; 1987.
3. Gurtner A, Tschan F, Semmer NK, Nägele C. Getting groups to develop good strategies: effects of reflexivity interventions on team process, team performance, and shared mental models. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 2007;102(2):127-142.
4. Argyris C, Schön DA. Organizational learning: a theory of action perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley; 1978.