The Effect of Metacognitive Strategies on Solving Mathematical Problems in the High School First Grade Students in Yazd

The aim of this research was to study the metacognition and its approaches to the ability of solving mathematical problems in the first grade of high school students of Yazd. The statistical population of the study were 120 high school students selected by using random sampling method in the two groups of experimental (case) and controls. Half of them were female and the other half were male. Experimental group attended in the metacognitive strategies training course. The curriculum of the experimental group was consisted of four hours of metacognitive methods training per week for a six-week period. Before starting this period, the pre-test was performed for the total of 120 students. It was a test with 14 questions appropriate for educational goals in the field of math in the first year of high school and the years before that (middle school). In other words, The diagnostic test was performed to assess the prerequisites. The same test was used again in the post-test phase. Results of statistical analysis using t-test showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the pre-test and post-test in both groups. This means that the mean scores of the group who participated in the training course of metacognition were significantly more than the mean of the control group (P < 0.05). The comparison between male and female students and their mean scores indicated that metacognitive training for both groups had a similar effect and no significant differences were observed (P > 0.05). Overall, this study showed that the metacognition training and its approaches had a positive impact on the students’ ability of problem-solving. These metacognitive activities encourage and persuade the students to learn math.