Metacognitive awareness and personal characteristics of students: A case of Estonia

Metacognitive Awareness and Personal Characteristics of Students: A Case of Estonia Hannes Ling, Innar Liiv, Martin Toding, Urve Venesaar Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology Corresponding author: Hannes Ling, email: [email protected] Abstract Entrepreneurship education has acquired a great importance in higher education for the development of entrepreneurial thinking, acquiring knowledge and skills for the development of entrepreneurial initiative among students. However, there is a need to study more profoundly the input as well as outcome of entrepreneurship training courses, especially concerning the assessment and improvement of training courses for making them more effective. The purpose of this article is to investigate how the courses on entrepreneurship are influencing students‟ metacognitive awareness and whether different personal characteristics of students are connected with and influencing the development of their metacognitive abilities. The article is based on the survey carried out by using students‟ psychological profile questionnaire and additional metacognitive awareness questionnaire. The results of study have been analysed by the tools of linear statistical analysis and clustering methodologies. The results indicate that entrepreneurial mindset and metacognitive awareness are most developed among students presenting higher level of self-confidence, aspiration towards independence and and risk-taking propensity, i.e. entreprising students. On the basis of the results of survey it is possible to make a conclusion that in order to increase students‟ metacognitive awareness the content of courses and teaching methods are important aspects to consider for students with different personal characteristics. Introduction Entrepreneurship has been considered as a source of growth and competitiveness. Fostering entrepreneurship among students has become an important topic for universities and governments. As a research subject the entrepreneurial mindset is a complex construct which connects to a variety of different fields like education, business administration and cognitive psychology. The field of cognitive psychology and metacognitive awareness is getting rapidly increasing attention in the scientific discussions in the context of entrepreneurship. Metacognition has been defined to be “the ability to reflect upon, understand, and control one‟s learning”(Schraw, 1998). In their study Mitchell et al propose that metacognitive thinking can be deliberately practiced in an entrepreneurial context. Further, they suggest such metacognitive thinking will lead to creation of entrepreneurial expertise by facilitating the self-reflection, understanding and control of one‟s own entrepreneurial cognitions. (Mitchell, et al. 2005). In addition it can be said that metacognition plays a role in how people adapt to their developing and changing circumstances which are present in any entrepreneurial processes (Haynie, Gregorie & Shepherd 2004, 2; Haynie & Shepherd, 2007). Moreover, findings of the studies by Haynie and Shepherd suggest that cognitive adaptability is important in an entrepreneurial context, and that metacognition does promote cognitive adaptability and thus improve performance on an entrepreneurial task. In the context of entrepreneurial training of students it would be appropriate to ask also whether the development of metacognition could be promoted by learning and aquiring of new knowledge in the settings of educational institution. Personal traits play an important role in the frame of developing the metacognitive abilities which influence significantly the learning outcomes. Findings of Vermetten, Lodewijks & Vermunt suggest that deep (metacognitive) learning is associated with a tendency to self- regulate (Vermetten, Lodewijks & Vermunt 2001). Metacognitive learning is considered to involve the ability to constantly ask yourself questions during the learning process about the goals and optional ways for achieving the target and the progress made. This is in correlation also with findings suggesting that personal interest is an important motivational component of self-regulated learning and metacognitive abilities (McWhaw & Abrami 2001). The lower the level of personal interest of an individual is toward the learning outcome, the more difficult it is to make a deeper impact to a persons knowledgebase. The relations between personality traits and metacognitive abilities are even further exposed by studies of Kleitman & Stankov (2007) who established the strong correlation between persons self-confidence and metacognitive abilities. However, there is a shortage of empirical evidence to justify this claim. The purpose of this research is to explore Estonian students‟ metacognitive awareness in the frame of entrepreneurial profile (i.e. dempgraphic characteristics; personal trits). The article is based on the survey carried out in the Tallinn University of Technology which included both students psychological profile questionnaire and additional metacognitive awareness questionnaire. The latter questionnaire covers 5 domains of metacognitive awareness as goal orientation, metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, metacognitive choice and monitoring. This provides a rich datasets for analysis of the changes in students metacognitive awareness in the frame of their entrepreneurial profile. The current paper seeks to investigate whether self-confidence, aspiration towards independence and readiness to take risks are connected with and influencing the development of metacognitive abilities of students. As a result of the analysis it will be useful to find out about how to teach entrepreneurship with the purposes of increasing students‟ metacognitive awareness. The results of study have been analysed by the tools of linear statistical analysis and clustering methodologies. The main research questions are: 1) What is the influence of entrepreneurship education training courses to the metacognitive awareness of students? 2) Whether and how the metacognitive awareness is connected with students‟ personality traits? In the structure of the article next the theoretical framework is included on the issues of metacognitive awareness and self-regulation as well as on entrepreneurial personality traits and their connection with metacognition vased on previous studies in the field. After that data and methods of analysis are covered. Following this, the results of the study are presented. And finally, the article ends with short conclusion. 1. Theoretical Framework 1.1. Metacognitive awareness and self-regulation Several studies have tried to fill in the gaps in entrepreneurship research by focusing on the role of metacognition in training, self-regulated learning and self-regulatory skills (Haynie, Gregorie & Shepherd; 2004; Haynie & Shepherd, 2007; Bryant, 2006; Ramocki 2007). It has been stated that almost anyone capable to perform a skill is also capable of metacognition, ie thinking about how they perform that skill (Schraw, 1998) or „thinking about thinking‟(Jost, Kruglanski, & Nelson, 1998). It has been also widely acknowledged that metacognition plays a significant role in success or failure and in how people adapt to their changing circumstances in an unstable entrepreneurial environment The underlying assumption of the research related to metacognitive abilities is that some individuals are more likely to start a business, no matter what difficulties they might encounter. Success at getting into business would not take place only due to the amount of time and effort devoted to entrepreneurial activities – both successful and unsuccessful potential entrepreneurs are likely to be able to extract these resources equally. Furthermore, the findings indicate that individuals who are engaging in metacognitive activities in a larger extent than others do not necessarily work more or longer, but spend the given time more effectively (Schmidt & Ford, 2003). In parallel it has been found that metacognitive training has a positive impact on decision-making skills which on its behalf are one of the critical ones for every entrepreneur (Batha & Carroll, 2007). Moreover, findings suggest that metacognitive abilities can be improved by learning, thus enhancing the adaptability and improving the entrepreneurial performance (Haynie, Gregorie & Shepherd 2004; Haynie & Shepherd, 2007). This is supported also by the research of Mitchell et al (2005) suggesting that metacognitive thinking will lead to creation of additional entrepreneurial expertise. Nevertheless, metacognition is not a unified construct. Previous research has shown that most theories of metacognition (Nelson & Narens, 1994; Schraw & Dennison, 1994; Schraw & Moshman, 1995) distinguish between knowledge of cognition (i.e., knowledge about one's own cognitive processes or capabilities, as well as knowledge about how, when, and why to use strategies and allocate cognitive resources), and regulation of cognition (i.e., the control aspect of learning). In this context there are three processes of metacognitive regulation typically posited (Schraw & Moshman, 1995; Schraw et al., 1995): (1) Planning, which refers to the selection of appropriate strategies and allocation of cognitive resources before the task; (2) Monitoring, which refers to the awareness of understanding and performance during the task; and (3) Evaluation, which refers to the appraisal of performance after task. This division of metacognitive processes corresponds with findings of Haynie (in Hisrich, Peters & Shepherd, 2007) who makes a distinction between five aspects as goal orientation, metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, metacognitive choice and monitoring. Schraw has argued that promoting metacognition begins with building an awareness that metacognition exists and increases the success (Schraw, 1998). Furthermore, it has been found that when both entrepreneurs and persons with high task-mastery skills present higher level of metacognitive awareness it is supporting the desired or optimal outcomes of their respective actions (Vrugt & Oort, 2008; Haynie et al., 2010). This is supported by findings of Bowman, Markham, & Roberts (2001) who indicate that metacognition refers to one's awareness of one's own cognitive processes. They argue that metacognition is an assessment of one's own ability, knowledge, and understanding of task-relevant factors and has wide implications for both educational and industrial/organizational settings. Pintrich (2002) on its behalf argues that metacognitive knowledge involves knowledge about cognition in general, as well as awareness of and knowledge about one‟s own cognition. This allows a person to monitor the development and to make appropriate and timely corrections in the processes in own mind. Moreover, students who are unaware that they lack certain abilities or factual or procedural knowledge are unlikely to make sufficient effort to acquire or construct new knowledge (Ibabe, 2010). This would allow to suggest that for the students who present lower metacognitive abilities (ie the ones not aware of their own reasoning patterns) than others after the training course it might be at some level related with inability of educational program to fully correspond with their needs. Although the outcomes of trainings depend also on the amount of value the participants personally put into it, there could exist a good possibility to make a lasting impact with cultivating the positive mindset towards entrepreneurship. Will to act under the provided circumstances, to assess them, make decisions, plan the following steps and to realize them for pursuing towards the goals are all dependent on goalsetting skills. It could be even said that it is one of the core skills of an entrepreneur. Fortunato&Goldblatt (2006) argue that there exists a dimension as learning goal orientation. Based on this the individuals who are actively involved in metacognitive exercises score high on achievement orientation, generalized self-efficacy, motivation to learn, positive emotionality, and positive self-perceptions. But research indicates also the connection between goal-orientation and metacognition in the frame of mastery goals and self-reported use of metacognitive strategies over time. For example findings of Pintrich (2000) establish that higher mastery in goal orientation correlates with higher self-regulation of cognition. Furthermore, Vandewalle (2001) argues that the individuals with a strong learning goal orientation are more interested in developing their skills and abilities, believe that such development is possible, and approach situations with a sense of high self-efficacy. Based on this it could be proposed that increased levels of skills, abilities, belief into oneself and situational awareness are at some level the predictors of presense of higher levels of metacognitive awareness. By agreeing with this one could also agree that cognitive adaptability (affected by the learning process) supports the willingness to stretch oneself to meet the challenging goals and to seek opportunities that foster personal growth. Research of Godshalk&Sosik (2003) adds to this discussion by arguing that persons having high levels of learning goal orientation are associated with the highest levels of psychosocial support and report higher levels of career development, managerial aspirations and career satisfaction when compared to the ones with low levels of learning goal orientation. 1.2. Entrepreneurial personality traits and their connection with metacognitive awareness The literature on entrepreneurial characteristics has included a number of variables that address psychological attributes, personality, attitudes, and behavior. Many authors explain the entrepreneurial profile of the person through creativity, locus of control, self-efficacy, self-confidence, self-independence and risk-taking. Hisrich and Peters (1989) focus on three personal characteristics, namely self-confidence, aspiration towards independence and readiness to take risks. This article focuses on these three personal traits and their relationship with enterprising and metacognitive awareness. Knight and Bandura (1994) discussed the concept of self-confidence. At present, there is considerable information about the relationship between self-confidence and cognitive abilities (Stankov, 1998; 1999; Stankov & Crawford, 1996, 1997; Stanovich, 1999). Something is also known about its relationship to personality (Pallier et al., 2002). Selfconfidence is sometimes treated as a personality trait, either on its own or as an underlying facet of broader traits (see Blais, Thompson, & Baranski, 2005, for a review). Moreover, Blais et al. (2005) have demonstrated that a broad range of cognitive styles, including need for cognition and desire for structure, had no effect on confidence (Kleitman, Stankov 2007). Importantly, the evidence for the meaningful relationship between self-confidence and some conceptually related constructs is scarce. In theory, confidence judgements reflect an important aspect of metacognitive processes (Stankov, 1999, cited in Kleitman, Stankov 2007). By Kronenberg's research entrepreneur‟s self-independence is related with the values of entrepreneurship such as: freedom, freedom of decision, individuaal responsibility, responsibility and working independently. Work Independently is linked to Freedom of Decisions and describes the advantage of a self-employment in terms of not being dependent from others. (Kronenberg 2011). However, Segal, Borgia & Schoenfeld (2005) are believing that people may be motivated to become entrepreneurs if they believe self-employment is more likely than working for others to lead to valued outcomes. People with a sense of entrepreneurial self-efficacy may be drawn to self-employment‟s desirable opportunities and benefits, compared to the availability of these benefits obtained through working for others (Segal, et al 2005). By option of Metaal people with a strong need for autonomy insist on not being dominated by other persons, avoid influence from others, and show impulsive, obnoxious, and irresponsible behavior (Metaal, 1992, cited in Gelderen, Jansen and Jonges 2003). Both economic theory and every-day observation suggest that risk-taking or risk-propensity are important aspects of running a business. Mill (1848/1984) described the entrepreneur as a risktaker and captain of enterprise, and emphasized risk-taking as a feature differentiating an entrepreneur from a manager. Similarly, risk is a business factor that is widely assumed in economic theory to be a source of entrepreneurial profit (Tyszka at al 2011). Macko and Tyszka (2009), in their research on entrepreneurial risk-taking, found that in well-defined (laboratory) risky situations entrepreneurs were not more risk-prone than non-entrepreneurs. However, in naturalistic-business risky situations they found more risky choices among entrepreneurs than among non-entrepreneurs. They concluded this study with the assertion that perhaps, like most humans, entrepreneurs try to avoid risks. Furthermore, entrepreneurs have to deal with risky situations (they simply face them), so they cannot avoid undertaking risky activities in business (e.g., investing, taking out credit, etc.). In addition, according to the previous research the Estonia people are rather risk-evasive when planning the business and investment (Estonian Institute of Economic Research, 2004). The same result was found in the survey among students (Venesaar et al, 2006). 2. Data and method The empirical study was carried out among the bachelor and master study students of technical specialities of Tallinn University of Technology, who were asked to give selfvaluation to personal traits connected with entrepreneurship and to metacognitive awareness. In three academic years (2008-2010) the students who had taken the subject of entrepreneurship and business planning, were asked to evaluate their personal traits and on the first or second lecture according to the questions of the tests given, and to assess their metacognitive awareness. The purpose of the course was to introduce participants with the concept of an entrepreneurial mindset and widen the horizon of the respective knowledge among students. The content of the course in entrepreneurship and business planning included lectures and exercises, solving teaching cases and writing business plans. It lasted throughout the whole semester (i.e. total 16 weeks and 48 hours). 280 students of different specialities were participated in the study, mainly on the specialities of logistics, natural sciences and technical sciences. Assemblage of the sample of the three years allows making generalizations of the results of the analysis with a higher probability. In order to collect the necessary data samples, participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire about cognitive adaptability. It was originally developed by Haynie (in Hisrich, Peters & Shepherd, 2007) as a "generalized measure of adaptive cognition". The questionnaire included 35 different statements and it was asked to be filled out both at the beginning and immediately at the end of the training courses. The statements covered five distinctive areas; such as goal orientation, metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, metacognitive choice and monitoring. This original questionnaire was translated into Estonian in order to avoid the possibility to get false readings due to possible misunderstanding of the text. For measuring the respective ratings a 10-step Likert Scale was introduced. Respondents were asked to answer the statements by rating each of them on the provided scale of 1 to 10, based on their own judgment where: 1 being equal to "Not very much like me" and 10 being equal to "Very much like me" To evaluate students‟ personal traits, the so-called entrepreneur‟s psychological portrait test was used (authors Hisrich and Peters, 1993), in which the questions were directed to making certain behavioural choices and where it was possible to give „yes” and „no” answers. The results of the analysis brought out in the article are mainly based on the methodology of the test‟s authors. The questions have been divided into two parts – „yes”-answer to one group of the questions confirming those personal traits (self-confidence, aspiration towards independence, readiness to take risks), can give the evaluation that the person has good prerequisites of becoming an entrepreneur; a certain number of „yes”-answers to the questions of the second group characterizing the opposite personal traits (dependence on external influences, non-aspiration towards independence and risk-evasiveness) indicates the case that the respondent should very carefully observe himself and plan an action programme to develop entrepreneural personal traits. The authors of the current article presumed that in the first case an evaluation of the person having good prerequisites of becoming an entrepreneur can be given and in the second case, they presume that the person has poor prerequisites of becoming an entrepreneur. Then, the questions of the psychological test have been grouped to express the personal traits of an entrepreneur (self-confidence, aspiration towards independence, readiness to take risks). The authors of the article divided all the entrepreneur‟s psychological portrait test‟s questions into six groups according to vision of the authors of the test. The database earlier consisting of 22 questions (traits) became a database of 6 groups (traits) with files of the test as horizontal lines and the abovementioned 6 groups (traits) as columns. In case of each group the authors of the article counted the „yes”-answers. The questions-answers of the first group (R1) show if the respondent is dependent on external influences which can interfere with becoming an independent entrepreneur. The orientation of the questions of the second group (R2) is to determine if the respondent‟s inner will to achieve success and victory is more powerful than the aspiration to subordinate to a strange will. The „yes”-answers to the questions of the third group (R3) give evidence to the respondent not particularly aspiring towards independence; the „yes”-answers to the questions of fourth group (R4) give evidence to the contrary. The purpose of the questions of the fifth group (R5) is to examine the respondent‟s readiness to take risks, the „yes”-answers to the questions of the sixth group (R6) give evidence to the opposite. Research design has been centered on a questionnaire developed to measure metacognitive awareness. In order to find evidence a frequency analysis has been utilized to evaluate the answers given to the respective statements. This provides the statistical properties (specifically mean and standard deviation, StDev) for each statement asked, as far as the distribution of the datapoints on the Likert scale is concerned. Additionally, analyzing these results gives an opportunity to assess whether they could be dominated by certain values or not. As a second step in the analysis of statistical properties it was designed to look at the difference of means before and after the course. This would allow extracting an indication about the impact of a training course. The basis for analysis is metacognitive awareness of students before the course. On the basis of clusters formed the changes in metacognitive awareness were assessed also after the course. And also, the profile of students were analysed according to the cluseters formed. In order to analyse the results of the questionnaire of cognitive adaptability cluster analysis has been used, the idea of which is that objects are columned into clusters (groups) in a way that one cluster consists of objects as similar as possible and they would clearly distinguish from the objects in other clusters. In order to get the first insights from the data, the agglomeritive complete-linkage hierarchical clustering procedure (Hall et al., 2009) was used to visualize all the respondents using a dendrogram. The cluster analysis was carried out also using K-means method (MacQueen, 1967), in case of which the number of clusters k has to be defined first – according to the information gained from the theoretical background, the results of hierachical clustering and considering the within cluster sum of squared errors, the objects were divided into five groups. K-means is a combinatorial data analysis partitional clustering method, where the objective function is to maximize the intra-cluster similarity and minimize the inter-cluster similarity. Similarity function for this research was chosen to be Eucledian distance, which was compatible with Likert scale. As a result of cluster analysis, each respondent was assigned to a group of similar students. The information about that cluster was added as a new attribute to every person in a database, allowing to perform a follow-up analysis of every such an object or cluster. 3. Results 3.1. Metacognitive awareness of students In the current study the level of metacognitive awareness of students has been identified based on the Haynie's cognitive adaptability questionnaire (Annex1). In order to present the evidences the linear statistical analysis has been utilised in the frame of mean values and standard deviations of each 5 metacognitive categories (Table1). The total mean values (column2) retrieved before the training course indicates that the participants rated the level of all their metocognitive abilities quite high (more than 6 points on 10-step scale). This allows to draw an assumption that on average the students were (based on their own judgements) already before the training course significantly aware of their thinking and reasoning patterns. However, when looking at this more closely it is evident that skills related to goal orientation and metacognitive knowledge received higher ratings than others. At the same time the skills related to the abilities of choosing between multiply options (the category "metacognitive choice") received the lowest ranking on average. Furthermore, when looking at the results after the training (column2) it is evident that the ratings have increased in all metacognitive categories (ie all the ratings are above 7 points). The fact that metacognitive abilities have increased after the training, supports the findings of Haynie et al (2004; 2007) which posited that learning has significant impact to metacognitive abilities and it enhances the performance. Table 1. Average scores of students ratings before and after the training course on entrepreneurship education Total Logistics Natural Sciences Technical Sciences Mean StDev Mean StDev Mean StDev Mean StDev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Before the training Goal Orientation 7.6 1.342 7.7 1.293 7.5 1.511 7.6 1.221 Metacognitive knowledge 7.5 .960 7.6 .808 7.5 .960 7.4 1.113 Metacognitive experience 7.3 1.121 7.5 .927 7.1 1.180 7.2 1.255 Metacognitive choice 6.8 1.400 6.9 1.198 6.6 1.491 6.9 1.510 Monitoring 7.1 1.212 6.9 1.118 7.0 1.182 7.2 1.335 After the training Goal Orientation 7.9 1.100 8.0 1.008 7.7 1.267 8.0 1.026 Metacognitive knowledge 7.8 .907 7.9 .888 7.7 .943 7.7 .890 Metacognitive experience 7.6 1.036 7.8 .878 7.5 1.150 7.5 1.081 Metacognitive choice 7.1 1.454 7.1 1.393 7.1 1.528 7.1 1.443 Monitoring 7.5 1.219 7.6 1.127 7.3 1.191 7.4 1.340 Note: The scale of 1-10 is used, where 1 being equal to "Not very much like me" and 10 being equal to "Very much like me". Source: authors’ compilation By comparing the average ratings in the frame of the study-disciplines it can be seen that students studing logistics dominate with high scores in almost every metacognitive category both before and after the training (column4). Technical sciences students indicate the comparable scores before the training only in category "metacognitive choice" (column8, 6.9 points) and after the training in "goal orientation" (8.0 points). It is remarkable also that variance of ratings of logistics-students (column5) remain on average lower compared to students studing natural (column7) or technical sciences (column9). This indicates that logistics-students are both more aware of their reasoning patterns and they do not have on average so much different opinions than students of other disciplines. The results of clustering using K-means method provided us the groups with at least 40 students in each of them (Table2). Looking at the groups closer reveals that based on the mean values calculated for each of the five metacognitive constructs both before and after the training the highest values were indicated by students belonging to cluster2 (columns 4&5). Members of this group expressed the highest scores in all the categories (ie goal orientation, metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, metacognitive choice and monitoring). At the same time the lowest values before the training were given mostly by students in the cluster3 (except in the domain of metacognitive knowledge where lowest results are indicated by cluster4). However, in order to describe the metacognitive abilities and awareness of students it is necessary to take a look more at the individual statements as it allows to present several interesting aspects characterising students. Table 2. Analysis of metacognitive awareness of students before and after the course on entrepreneurship education using K-means clustering method cluster1 cluster2 cluster3 cluster4 cluster5 before after before after before after before after before after 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Count 68 52 40 49 71 Goal Orientation 1 8.0 8.1 9.3 8.9 6.8 7.4 8.4 8.5 7.5 8.2 2 8.2 8.1 9.3 8.8 6.7 7.1 8.0 8.3 7.8 8.0 3 7.4 7.5 8.9 8.9 5.5 6.6 7.9 7.9 7.0 7.7 4 7.2 7.6 8.9 8.6 4.7 6.3 7.7 7.7 7.3 7.8 5 7.3 7.7 9.0 8.6 5.1 6.4 7.4 7.9 7.3 7.7 Mean 7.6 7.8 9.1 8.8 5.8 6.8 7.9 8.1 7.4 7.9 Metacognitive knowledge 6 8.2 7.5 9.1 8.9 7.0 7.2 8.0 8.1 8.0 8.6 Fortunato, V.J., Goldblatt, A.M. (2006). "An Examination of Goal Orientation Profiles Using Cluster Analysis and Their Relationships With Dispositional Characteristics and Motivational Response Patterns." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36(9): 2150- 2183 Gartner, W.B. (1989). "Some Suggestions for Research on Entrepreneurial Traits and Characteristics". 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"Motivation, self-efficacy, and risk attitudes among entrepreneurs during transition to a market economy". Journal of Socio-Economics. 40(2): 124-131; Vandewalle, D. (2001). "Goal Orientation: Why Wanting to Look Successful Doesn‟t Always Lead to Success." Organizational Dynamics. 30(2): 162-171 Venesaar, U., Kolbre, E., Piliste, T. (2006) "Attitudes and intentions of Students toward Entrepreneurship: A Case of Estonia". The paper is presented at the EISB2006 Conference in Southampton, UK; Vermetten, Y.J., Lodewijks, H.G., Vermunt, J.D. (2001). "The Role of Personality Traits and Goal Orientations in Strategy Use". Contemporary Educational Psychology. 26(2): 149-170 Vrugt, A., Oort, F.J. (2008). "Metacognition, Achievement Goals, Study Strategies and Academic Achievement: Pathways to Achievement". Metacognition Learning. 3(2): 123-146 Annex1 Cognitive adaptability questions 1.I often define goals for myself 2. I understand how accomplishment of a task relates to my goals 3. I set specific goals before I begin a task 4. I ask myself how well I have accomplished my goals once I have finished 5. When performing a task, I frequently assess my progress against may objectives 6. I think of several ways to solve a problem and choose the best one 7. I challenge my own assumptions about a task before I begin 8. I think about how others may react to my actions 9. I find myself automatically employing strategies that have worked in the past 10. I perform best when I already have knowledge of the task 11. I create my own examples to make information more meaningful 12. I try to use strategies that have worked in the past 13. I ask myself questions about the task before I begin 14. I try to translate new information into my own words 15. I try to break problems down into smaller components 16. I focus on the meaning and significance of new information 17. I think about what I really need to accomplish before I begin a task 18. I use different different strategies depending on the situation 19. I organise my time to best accomplish my goals 20. I am good at organising information 21. I know what kind of information is most important to consider when faced with a problem 22. I consciously focus my attention on important information 23. My "gut" tells me when a given strategy I use will be most effective 24. I depend on my intuition to help me formulate strategies 25. I ask myself if I have considered all the options when solving a problem 26. I ask myself if there was an easier way to do things after I finish a task 27. I ask myself if I have considered all the options after I solve a problem 28. I re-evaluate my assumptions when I get confused 29. I ask myself if I have learned as much as I could have after I finish the task 30. I periodically review to help me understand important relationships 31. I stop and go back over information that is not clear 32. I am aware of what strategies I use when engaged in agiven task 33. I find myself analysing the usefulness of a given strategy while engaged in a given task 34. I find myself pausing regularly to check my comprehension of the problem I situated at hand 35. I ask myself questions about how well I am doing while I am performing a novel task. I stop and re-read when I get confused Source: adopted from Hisrich, R.D., Peters, M.P., & Shepherd, D.A. (2007)