Psychometric properties of the metacognition questionnaire (MCQ-A) in Spanish adolescents

The Metacognition Questionnaire, including the version adapted to adolescents, measures non-adaptive metacognition believes. This study measured the structure of the MCQ-A factor in adolescents, and its correlation with anxiety and emotional regulation.

The aim of this study was the adaptation and validation of the Spanish version of the questionnaire on metacognitive beliefs in adolescents with a sample of schoolchildren (N = 1031, age = 14.91 years).

Two studies were undertaken: (1) the translation of the MCQ-A scale into Spanish, including the evaluation of internal consistency, factorial structure, and convergent validity; and (2) the confirmatory factorial analysis of the questionnaire.

Five factors were obtained: (1) positive beliefs about concerns; (2) negative beliefs about lack of control and concern risk; (3) cognitive confidence; (4) the need to control thoughts; and (5) cognitive self-awareness. The exploratory factorial analysis clearly showed that the MCQ-A scale factors present an aggregate variance of 53.42%, which explains the unique variation of metacognitive beliefs. For its part, confirmatory factorial analysis endorsed the suitability of the model, with a sustainable structure that comprise the five factors identified and 30 items. In addition, network analysis revealed that metacognitive beliefs and feature-anxiety are related.

The MCQ-A is easy to understand and fast to complete, so it is regarded as useful for the assessment of non-adaptive metacognitive beliefs in adolescents.