Students' Metacognition, Strategy, and Affective Anxiety While Executing a Spreadsheet Activity

  • Authors:

  • Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen;Lyn Henderson

  • Affiliations:

  • School of Education, James Cook University, Queensland 4811, Australia, Phone: 61 7 4772 7634, Facsimile: 61 7 4725 1690, Email: Trang.Nguyen@jcu.edu.au;School of Education, James Cook University, Queensland 4811, Australia, Phone: 61 7 4781 4355, Facsimile: 61 7 4725 1690, Email: Lynette.Henderson@jcu.edu.au

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Towards Sustainable and Scalable Educational Innovations Informed by the Learning Sciences: Sharing Good Practices of Research, Experimentation and Innovation
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

This paper presents findings from a research project that examined Vocational Education and Training (VET) students' thinking profiles during the execution of an electronic spreadsheet activity. The empirical qualitative study was centered in a information processing theory and mediating processes paradigm that utilised stimulated recall interviews. The aim was to ascertain any links between metacognition, strategy and thoughts about the affective area of anxiety. The findings revealed that, at least in this study, metacognition plays a critical role in the selection, or failure to select, appropriate strategies. The males used control-type metacognition to look for strategies to solve problems whereas females were preponderantly of the self-awareness metacognition. As the result, males performed better than females did, overall. However, both males and females reported thoughts about experiencing computer anxiety. Anxiety had significant effects on their metacognition and strategies. This study offers further insights to the literature about these connections.