The validity and reliability of Teachers Metacognition Inventory (TMI)

The concept of metacognition was introduced by Flowell in the 1970s. He defined metacognition as "having knowledge (cognition) and the ability to understand, control and use this knowledge or cognition properly". Metacognition can generally be defined as an individual's awareness of his cognitive skills and his ability to monitor and control his cognition. Researchers distinguish between two main components of metacognition, namely metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. Metacognitive knowledge is the information that a person has about their cognition and learning strategies. Today's accepted theories of metacognitive knowledge encompasses three categories of knowledge: expressive knowledge (knowledge of things), procedural knowledge (knowledge of how to do it), and conditional knowledge or situational knowledge (knowledge of why and when to do it). But metacognitive regulation refers to the steps that an individual takes to regulate and refine the process of cognitive activity development, taking into account the curriculum and current or intended outcomes of learning. Although a relatively large number of metacognitive regulation skills have been described in the research literature so far, three concepts have been frequently mentioned: design or planning, monitoring, and evaluation.Being equipped with metacognitive strategies is one of the topics that is widely discussed in the field of academic and professional performance psychology today, and the teaching job is no exception to this rule. The teacher's metacognitive knowledge of the teaching, refers to strategies and techniques in teaching that are used in educational situations and in order to achieve teaching goals. Teachers' knowledge of what they know about their teaching is the starting point for a change in the development of the teaching profession, and research acknowledges that the teacher teaching metacognition can have a profound effect on the teacher teaching and student learning process.Given that the subject of teachers' metacognitive awareness is a new field for research and has been less studied, conducting scientific research in this field is important, and to do this, the existence of appropriate tools is a prerequisite and initial step. But, a review of the global research shows that so far little effort has been made to develop a special tool for measuring teachers' metacognitive knowledge of teaching. based on this, Jiang, Ma & Gao (2012) developed a tool called the Teachers' Metacognition Questionnaire. For this, They first reviewed the research literature related to the definitions and structure of metacognition and developed a three-component model of teachers' metacognition. The first component, the teacher's metacognitive knowledge, included personal knowledge, homework knowledge, and strategies knowledge. The second component was the teacher's metacognitive experiences and refers to those emotional experiences that are related to the teacher's cognitive activity in teaching. The third component was the teacher's metacognitive skills, which includes four sub-components: planning, monitoring, evaluating, and modifying teaching activities. After considering these theoretical foundations, they built the initial version of the tool and implemented it in two separate studies. Finally, after modifying the tool, the validity and reliability of the 28-item version were confirmed by identifying a general factor (teacher teaching metacognition) and 6 subscales including: 1- Teacher metacognitive experience, 2- Metacognitive knowledge about themselves, 3- Metacognitive knowledge about pedagogy, 3- Teacher metacognitive planning, 5- Teacher metacognitive monitoring, 6- Teacher metacognitive reflection. The same research gap exists in Iran, and so far no tool has been translated, made, or validated to measure the metacognitive awareness of teachers in the country. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to introduce the Teacher Metacognitive inventory (TMI) and translate and validate this tool in order to assess its usability among Iranian teachers and provide a basis for measuring a range of metacognitive knowledge of teachers in the country.

The method of the present study was a survey research. The statistical population of the study included all primary and high school teachers in Sanandaj. For sampling, 284 (121 primary school teachers and 163 high school teachers) were selected by cluster random sampling as the research sample. Due to the fact that tool makers have validated its factors using exploratory factor analysis, In this study, confirmatory factor analysis and criterion validity were used to evaluate the validity of the inventory. Cronbach's alpha method and test retest method were used to evaluate the reliability of the inventory.

Finally, the data were analyzed using AMOS 18 and SPSS 22 statistical software.The results of the validity test using confirmatory factor analysis showed that the data are consistent with the model and factor structure determined by its makers and the model shows a good fit with the data. In addition, the study of criterion validity with Metacognitive Awareness Inventory(MAI) showed that there is a significant correlation between the subscales of these two instruments, which indicates the appropriate criterion validity of the instrument. In the reliability test, Cronbach's alpha coefficients obtained for its various subscales ranged from 0.75 to 0.82, which indicates the high internal consistency of the inventory subscales. The reliability coefficient of the retest obtained for different subscales as well as the whole inventory also showed that this instrument has a high retest ability to run on the sample of Iranian teachers.

Findings of this study are very important in research and educational activities related to metacognitive learning and teaching. Firstly, the present results are useful for helping teachers to create a more effective interaction between learning and teaching. Secondly, this questionnaire plays an important role in helping teachers identify their strengths and weaknesses in teaching activities. Thirdly, the availability of such a multidimensional metacognitive scale may have important practical implications for more specific teacher training. In general, validation of this inventory in Iran, in addition to providing the opportunity to measure and describe the level of teachers' teaching metacognition in various dimensions of metacognitive experiences, metacognitive knowledge about themselves and their pedagogy, planning, monitoring and metacognitive reflection during educational activities and teaching , can provide the basis for further research to determine the important variables related to teaching metacognition and finally design effective interventions and applications to improve the metacognitive abilities of Iranian teachers.