METACOGNITIVE INSTRUCTION IN INTRODUCTORY COMPUTER-PROGRAMMING - A BETTER EXPLANATORY CONSTRUCT FOR PERFORMANCE THAN TRADITIONAL FACTORS

This article examines the effect of metacognitive instruction on stude nts' achievement in introductory programming courses over traditional predictors of performance. Metacognitive instruction was conceptualize d as a package, aimed at inducing students to develop a metacognitive strategy relevant for computer programming via interactive teaching. T he metacognitive strategy consisted of a five-step planning strategy t o guide students' program planning process. The interactive teaching a pproach involved explicit modeling, coaching and collaborative learnin g. An experimental field study conducted with twenty-eight experimenta l and twenty-eight matched control students revealed that metacognitiv e instruction is a better explanatory construct for students' computin g performance than traditional person variables such as background kno wledge, program major, gender or age. The impact of metacognitive inst ruction on the learning processes and outcomes of students with differ ent personal characteristics was systematically examined.