A Research Of Peer-assisted Learning And The Development Of Pupils’ Metacognition

This thesis attempts to solve the problem of pupils’metacognitive development.A Questionnaire on Pupils’Metacognition is revised,based on the characteristics of pupils in grade three and the expectation of teachers for the 3^rd grade pupils’metacognitive development,from the Self-Assessment Questionnaire on Pupils’Metacognition developed by Yue Lixia.The questionnaire survey,conducted in a class of the third grade of C Primary School in Changning District,Shanghai,shows that students in this class did not meet the teachers’expectations in terms of self-monitoring and reflective learning,especially with regard to self-monitoring.The literature review shows that the existing research has not linked peer-assisted learning with the students’metacognitive development but focuses on its effect on the students’academic performance.Students are either provided with thinking program or trained to collect mistakes from their own homework,quizzes and exams and to write reflective diaries to improve their metacognition.This thesis takes a different approach to explore the social constructive mechanism of peer-assisted learning on the pupils’metacognitive development.A three-month peer-assisted learning experiment has been conducted in the third-grade class of C primary school in Changning District,Shanghai.The comparison of Questionnaire on Pupils’Metacognition survey before and after the experiment,together with on-site observations and questionnaire surveys of parents and teachers,proves that there are many advantages in the peer-assisted learning approach.It not only contributes to the student’s social development,but also improves the pupils’metacognition.Peer coaching provides pupils with the opportunity to monitor and describe their own implicit learning process,then reflect on their own learning process,and eventually imprvove their metacognition.The study also shows that the promotion of pupil’metacognitive development through peer-assisted learning depends on teachers’careful and dedicated guidance during the process.Based on the peer-assisted learning experiment,a guidline for peer-assisted learning is developed.It gives teachers some advices to guide students to cooperate and help each other and to intervene and evaluate peer-assisted learning so as to give full play to the advantages of this kind of learning approach on metacognitive development.