On-line and Off-line Assessment of Metacognition

The study investigates the interrelationships between different on-line and off-line measures for assessing metacognition. The participants were 47 fifth grade elementary students. Metacognition was assessed through two off-line and two on-line measures. The off-line measures consisted of a teacher rating scale and a self-report questionnaire. The on-line measures were thinking aloud protocols and accuracy ratings of text comprehension. The results showed positive significant correlation between data from two off-line measures and negative significant correlation between data from two on-line measures. The off-line metacognitive measures had non-significant correlations with all on-line measures. Principal Component Analysis, performed on four metacognitive measures, yielded a two-factor solution and this two-factor solution accounted for 71.5 % of the sample variance. The data from two off-line measures loaded on the first component with a variance proportion of 38.6% and the data from two on-line measures loaded on the second component with a varianceproportion of 32.9%. The findings of the study showed that metacognitive processes form a complex structure that needs to be assessed using various methods. However, in the multi-method studies,using on-line and off-line measures together will be appropriate rather than using only on-line measures or only off-line measures.