Differences in student engagement : investigating the role of the dominant cognitive processes preferred by engineering and education students

This paper reports on a study of the differences in the dominant cognitive processes preferred by groups of engineering and education students and examines the implications of these differences for the assessment of student engagement with university courses. Concern is expressed that the items commonly used to capture student engagement data do not adequately cover the full range of the dominant cognitive processes preferred by tertiary students. The paper sets out a brief overview of student engagement along with the theory of dominant and auxiliary cognitive processes, as developed by Jung and later by Myers. Evidence is presented of the differing frequencies of the eight cognitive processes, as assessed by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, that are preferred by cohorts of students undertaking courses in engineering and education. The implications of these differences are discussed in the context of subject disciplines in university environments.<br /

Identifying a taxonomy for the emergence of metacognition in young learners

This paper details a study of upper primary (elementary) students&rsquo; thinking as they go about solving a problem, presented in an innovative computer program. Student responses to a metacognitive probe question reveal levels of responses that can be classified because of their shared quality. A thematic analysis was conducted with the initial classifications being based on theoretically derived categories from the metacognitive literature. These classifications were subsequently ordered into a taxonomy of hierarchical progression towards metacognition. Results in this instance indicated that less than 20% of these upper primary students showed they were capable of operating at a metacognitive level