Metacognition and Group Differences: A Comparative Study

In this study, metacognition refers to performing visual analysis and discrimination of real life events and situations in naïve psychology, naïve physics, and naïve biology domains. It is used, along with measuring reaction time, to examine differences in the ability of four groups of students to select appropriate pictures that correspond with other pictures representing specific events, actions, or behaviors. Results showed no significant differences between deaf, hearing students from public Arabic schools, and hearing multinational students from private English school when correct responses were measured based on reaction time. These three groups of students obtained significantly higher correct scores and took significantly less reaction time to respond to items on the test compared to students with mild mental disabilities. This study suggests that students' age, processing time, and nuances that accompany the behavior could be advanced toward developing a model that explains inter- and intra-differences in metacognition.