Development of the Metacognitive Skills of Prediction and Evaluation in Children With or Without Math Disability

Metacognition refers to knowledge about one's own cognition. The present study was designed to assess metacognitive skills that either precede or follow task engagement, rather than the processes that occur during a task. Specifically, we examined prediction and evaluation skills among children with (n = 17) or without (n = 179) mathematics learning disability (MLD), from grades 2 to 4. Children were asked to predict which of several math problems they could solve correctly; later, they were asked to solve those problems. They were asked to evaluate whether their solution to each of another set of problems was correct. Children's ability to evaluate their answers to math problems improved from grade 2 to grade 3, whereas there was no change over time in the children's ability to predict which problems they could solve correctly. Children with MLD were less accurate than children without MLD in evaluating both their correct and incorrect solutions, and they were less accurate at predicting which problems they could solve correctly. However, children with MLD were as accurate as their peers in correctly predicting that they could not solve specific math problems. The findings have implications for the usefulness of children's self-review during mathematics problem solving.