The role of metacognition in the first-year design lab

Metacognition, or the ability to think about thinking, plays a significant role in the performance of first-year design students. Although the number of studies that focus on metacognition has increased in the past decade, additional studies are needed to more fully investigate metacognition and the use of metacognitive strategies in design education. Thus, this study focused on the influence of metacognitive knowledge, monitoring, and control on first-year design students’ performance. The conditions leading to changes in first-year design students’ metacognitive thinking and behaviors were also investigated. The processes of gathering data through concurrent verbalization and retrospective verbalization methods and a questionnaire are described. Thematic data analysis was used to extract the emerging themes from these data sources. Results indicated that metacognitive thinking was present in the generation and development of design ideas. Comparisons of higher- and lower-performing students demonstrated the importance of metacognitive thinking during design learning tasks; higher-performing (HP) students tended to focus more on metacognitive thinking, whereas lower-performing (LP) students focused more on cognitive activities. Other comparisons between HP and LP students, along with recommendations for improving students’ problem solving performance in design courses, are shared.