Metacognition

The term metacognition refers to the act of thinking about thinking, or the cognition of cognition. It is the ability for you to control your own thoughts. Confused? Although it is a complex construct, the definition is not complex. It really is the knowledge and regulation of cognitive phenomena which means, you can control your own thoughts.

Metacognition includes the ability for you to control:

1) person variables (knowledge about one's self, and others' thinking),
2) task variables (knowledge that different types of tasks exert different types of cognitive demands), and;
3) strategy variables (knowledge about cognitive and metacognitive strategies for enhancing learning and performance).