DEVELOPMENT OF METACOGNITIVE CONCEPTS ABOUT THINKING IN GIFTED AND NONGIFTED CHILDREN - RECENT RESEARCH

This article provides an overview of recent research in our laboratori es on the development of metacognition in gifted and nongifted childre n. Research examining the development of children's metacognitive know ledge of mental activity concepts, general declarative metacognitive k nowledge, and specific metacognitive attributions are reviewed. The pr esent studies found, as had Alexander, Carr, and Schwanenflugel (1995) , patterns of gifted and nongifted metacognitive development differed depending on the type of metacognitive knowledge being examined. Speci fically, recent research on knowledge of mental activity concepts show ed no clear advantages for gifted children over nongifted children. De clarative metacognitive knowledge research continues to support a mono tonic advantage hypothesis in which gifted children show consistent ad vantages over nongifted children during the early elementary school ye ars. This advantage, however, is short-lived due to the possible prese nce of a ceiling effect showing a closing of the declarative metacogni tive knowledge gap between gifted and nongifted child ren around fourt h grade. Finally, recent research on specific metacognitive attributio ns suggests that more intelligent children develop more sophisticated attributions over time but their ability to use this information may b e more dependent on other individual differences variables that may or may not be related to intelligence such as knowledge base familiarity . We conclude that it is important to differentiate the types of meta- cognitive knowledge being measured in studies as we investigate indivi dual differences in the development of children's metacognitive insigh ts about thinking.