Investigation of Prospective Teachers ’ Metacognitive Awareness in terms of Some Variables

The purpose of this study is to examine the metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers according to their gender, field of study and the average number of books they read in a year excluding textbooks. The study was conducted in accordance with this purpose, and the sample of the study consists of prospective teachers who were senior students at Dicle University Ziya Gokalp Faculty of Education in the 2014-2015 academic years spring semester and 1475 randomly selected prospective teachers in the teacher certification program. In the study, the 52-item “Metacognitive Awareness Inventory” was used in order to determine the metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers. The inventory was originally developed by Schraw and Dennison (1994) and it was adapted to Turkish by Akin, Abaci and Cetin (2007). The findings of the study reveal that the metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers does not differ significantly in the total extent of the scale according to their gender, but differs significantly according to their field of study and the average number of books they read in a year excluding textbooks.


Introduction
Incidences throughout the day and associated changes cause individuals to be in need of new learning issues.In this respect, to meet these needs for learning, as learning in school is limited in time, the individual needs lifelong learning to acquire the required information and skill in every moment of life.The need for lifelong learning makes it a requirement for the individual to acquire the skills to learn lifelong learning.The individual, who learns how to learn, knows how to reach information is aware of the learning activities and can keep the learning process under control by directing learning events.It is, therefore, very important to develop individuals who learn how to learn.
The most significant aspect of those who have learned how to learn is that they are aware of their strengths and weaknesses; however, this awareness is not solely enough for realization of learning.One of the most important yet the most neglected aspects of learning is that students do not know how to use it although they have necessary information and skills to fulfill a task and thus, their skills halt at a point (Akın & Abacı, 2011).It is suggested that one of the reasons for the individual not knowing how to use information and skills he/she has is a result of underdeveloped metacognitive skills.The individual is aware of his/her own learning skills and learning is facilitated and becomes continuous if he/she manages to direct them.This raises the importance of metacognition which includes the learning process of learners and stages of this process such as self-monitoring, control and assessment and contributes to the individual's learning how to learn.Flavell (1987) emphasizes that a good school is "the home of metacognitive development" because of the opportunities it offers for self-conscious learning (Translated: Akın & Abacı, 2011).This demonstrates importance of qualifications of teachers in realization of learning in school environment.The profession of teaching is an important factor which determines quality of educational services and it is a long accepted reality that the quality of education can only be as good as the quality of the teacher (Mahiroğlu, 2012).In this respect, it can be suggested that teachers play an important role in learners' aspects which are open to development.Gunstone and Northfield (1994) state that metacognitive teaching should be at the center of teacher's education.From this perspective, based on teachers who constitute one of the most important variables of learning-teaching environment, this study aims to examine metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers at the last grade at Ziya Gökalp Faculty of Education and prospective teachers in the teaching certificate program in the 2014-2015 academic years, who will be the teachers of the future, in terms of some variables.This study seeks for answers to the questions below regarding this purpose.
1-Do metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers significantly differ between the total dimension and sub-dimensions of the scale by gender?
2-Do metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers significantly differ between the total dimension and sub-dimensions of the scale by field of activity?
3-Do metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers significantly differ between the total dimension and sub-dimensions of the scale by the number of books they read in a year, other than textbooks?

Method Study Model
The study was conducted with the screening model, a descriptive research model.Screening modelbased studies aim to collect data to determine certain properties of a group (Büyüköztürk, Çakmak, Akgün, Karadeniz & Demirel, 2010).General screening model has been used in the study.General screening models are screening organizations made on the entire study population or any group, part or sample of it with an aim to provide a general view of the population which is comprised of multiple components (Karasar, 2009).

Population and Sample
The population of the study is comprised of prospective teachers who were last grade students at Dicle University Ziya Gökalp Faculty of Education in the spring semester of the 2014-2015 academic year and 2883 prospective teachers who were attending the teaching certificate program.The sample of the study is comprised of prospective teachers who were last grade students at Dicle University Ziya Gökalp Faculty of Education in the spring semester of the 2014-2015 academic year and 1475 prospective teachers who were attending the teaching certificate program, selected randomly.The findings about the study sample are provided in Table 1 below. In Table 1, 59.10 % of prospective teachers in the study are female and 40.90% are male.In Table 3, prospective teachers from 17 different fields of study were included in the study.While Turkish Language and Literature has the most attendance with 207 prospective teachers, Geography has the least attendance with 47 individuals.

Data Collection Tools
"Personal Information Form" and "Metacognitive Awareness Inventory" were used as the data collection tools in the study.Personal Information Form is comprised of questions to determine the student's gender, field of study and the mean number of books he/she read in a year, other than textbooks.52-item "Metacognitive Awareness Inventory", originally developed by Schraw and Dennison (1994), adapted to Turkish by Akın et al. (2007) was used to determine metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers.Akın et al. (2007) calculated concurrent validity for the entire inventory comprised of eight sub-dimensions to be .95and reported item-test correlations of sub-dimensions varied between .35 and .65 as a result of item analysis and the inventory internal consistency and testretest reliability coefficients were .95.Reliability coefficients for the entire inventory and its subdimensions in our study are provided in Table 4. .93 In Table 4, reliability coefficient for the entire inventory is .93 and it varies between .55 and .70 for sub-dimensions.Generally, inventories with a reliability coefficient of .70 and higher are considered to be reliable (Domino & Domino, 2006;Fraenkel, Wallend & Hyun, 2012;Leech, Barlett & Morgan, 2005).However, for inventories with less items, reliability coefficients over .50can be taken as basis (Nunnaly & Bernstein, 1994;Raines-Eudy, 2000).Under the light of this information, it can be asserted that less number of items in these sub-dimensions can be the main reason for the fact that reliability coefficient is .55 in four-item procedural information sub-dimensions and .59 in five-item debugging sub-dimension although it is .93 in the total 52-item inventory.Therefore, considering criteria for reliability coefficient, it can be concluded that all of the values obtained from reliability studies in both the total dimension and sub-dimensions of the metacognitive awareness inventory are acceptably reliable.

Data Collection
Data required for the study was collected from 1475 prospective teachers in total comprised of last grade students and teacher certification program in the spring semester of the 2014-2015 academic years upon permission of Dicle University Ziya Gökalp Faculty of Education.The data was collected by the researcher in person in all groups.The researcher ensured voluntary participation by discussing the importance of the study, the number of items in data collection tools and the approximate duration of the practice in the groups he/she visited to collect data.

Data Analysis
The data collected for the study was analyzed by "SPSS 20.0" package software.In order to analyze the data collected in a study by using parametric tests, certain criteria should be meet such as the scores of the data set should exhibit normal distribution and variances should be homogenous etc. (Büyüköztürk, 2011).However, Korum (1985:135) reports "Irrespective of the distribution of the random variable we are interested in the population; sample average will be a normally distributed random variable for samples over a certain volume (generally 30 or more) to be taken from a population".Again in support of this statement, Pallant (2005:210) states incompatibility of the scores of a data set with the normal approach does not cause major problems for a sample group (more than 30 or 40) that is large enough.Moreover, Ghasemi and Zahediasl (2012:486) reported that scores of the data set, although not normally distributed, allow us to make parametric tests, if the sample group is large enough.Considering the foregoing, parametric tests were used assuming the distribution was normal as the 1475 person sample group and every volume of this group was larger than 30.t-Test and one way variance analysis (ANOVA) were used for independent samples among parametric statistics methods in data analysis.Scheffé test was used to determine the source of the significant difference according to the results..05significance level was taken as basis to test significant difference.Bonferroni test was used to determine the difference between subgroups, eta squared was used to calculate impact size ( η 2 ) (small for η 2 =.01-.06,medium for η 2 =.06 to .14, and large for η 2 =.14 and higher) (Akbulut, 2010: 114 adapted from Cohen, 1988 )."Metacognitive awareness inventory" used to collect data is a 5 point Likert type scale and is comprised of the points of "Totally Agree, Agree, Partially Agree, Disagree and Totally Disagree".The scale range was 5-1=4, 4/5=0.80.The values corresponding to scale ranges are as follows; Very low: 1.00-1.80Low: 1.  Very high: 4.21-5.00

Results
This section lists the findings obtained from statistical analysis of data collected to examine metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers.
In Table 5, metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers significantly differed in debugging and information management sub-dimensions by gender but did not significantly differ in the remaining subdimensions and the entire scale.Low level of impact was determined considering the impact values in debugging and information management sub-dimensions with significant difference.Mean scores are higher in female prospective teachers in both dimensions.
In Table 6, metacognitive awareness mean scores of prospective teachers in descriptive information sub-dimension vary between 3.74 and 4.02.Considering these values, it can be concluded that metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers is higher in descriptive information sub-dimension.In Table 8, metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers have the highest average in the field of foreign languages and the lowest average in the field of chemistry in procedural information subdimension.Considering all fields of study, prospective teachers have medium level of metacognitive awareness in the field of chemistry and high level of metacognitive awareness in other fields in procedural information sub-dimension.In Table 10, metacognitive awareness average scores of prospective teachers in situational information sub-dimension vary between 3.68 and 3.96.This value demonstrates prospective teachers have high level of metacognitive awareness in all fields in the considered sub-dimension.In Table 11, metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers significantly differs in situational information sub-dimension according to their fields of study.Considering the impact value, the field variable has low level of impact on situational information sub-dimension of metacognitive awareness level.FB-TDE, DİKAB-Biology and YDE-Chemistry can be provided as examples to field duos which constitute the source of difference.
In Table 12, metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers have the highest average in the field of biology and the lowest average in the field of secondary education mathematics in planning subdimension.Metacognitive awareness mean scores of prospective teachers in planning sub-dimension vary between 3.50 and 3.78.These values demonstrate prospective teachers have high level of metacognitive awareness in all fields in planning sub-dimension.In Table 13, metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers significantly differs in planning subdimension according to their fields of study.Considering the impact value of .018, the field variable has low level of impact on planning sub-dimension of metacognitive awareness level.SÖ-Biology, Physics-Philosophy and DİKAB-TDE can be provided as examples to field duos which constitute the source of difference.
In Table 14, metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers in monitoring sub-dimension vary between 3.42 and 3.70.These values demonstrate prospective teachers have high level of metacognitive awareness in all fields in monitoring sub-dimension.
In Table 15, metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers does not significantly differ in monitoring sub-dimension.In Table 16, metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers have the highest average in the field of biology and the lowest average in the field of education of religion and ethics in assessment subdimension.Considering the average scores varying between 3.42 and 3.70 in the concerned subdimension, these values demonstrate prospective teachers have high level of metacognitive awareness in all fields in the related sub-dimension.
In Table 17, metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers does not significantly differ in assessment sub-dimension.
In Table 18, metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers in debugging sub-dimension vary between 3.56 and 3.83.These values demonstrate prospective teachers have high level of metacognitive awareness in all fields in debugging sub-dimension.
In Table 19, metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers does not significantly differ in debugging sub-dimension.In Table 20, metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers have the highest average in the field of fine arts and the lowest average in the field of history in information management subdimension.Averages vary between 3.63 and 3.87 by the field in this sub-dimension.These values demonstrate prospective teachers have high level of metacognitive awareness in all fields in information management sub-dimension.In Table 22, metacognitive awareness mean scores of prospective teachers vary between 3.61 and 3.81 by their fields of study.While biology has the highest mean scores, education of religion and ethics has the lowest mean scores.In Table 23, metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers significantly differs by their fields of study.Considering the impact value, the field variable has low level of impact on metacognitive awareness level.
As can be seen in Table 24, metacognitive awareness total mean scores of prospective teachers varies between 3.62 and 3.78 by the number of the books they read.The number of the books read by prospective teachers generally increases the metacognitive awareness average scores.Moreover, considering sub-dimensions, average score is the highest with 3.85 in descriptive information dimension and the lowest with 3.52 in procedural information.Increased number of books can be concluded to generally increase metacognitive awareness in sub-dimensions.In Table 25, metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers significantly varies in all subdimensions other than debugging sub-dimension and in the total dimension by the number of the books read.Based on impact values, it can be concluded that the lowest level of impact is in sub-dimensions with significant difference and in total dimension.3and less, 8-11 and 4-7 as well as 12 and more duos can be given as examples to the number of books read which constitutes the source of the difference in all sub-dimensions with significant difference and in total dimension.

Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations
Considering the findings about metacognitive differences of prospective teachers by gender, significant difference was reported in debugging and information management sub-dimensions and no significant difference in descriptive information, procedural information, situational information, planning, monitoring and assessment sub-dimensions and in the total dimension of the scale.Female prospective teachers had higher average scores of metacognitive awareness in debugging and information management sub-dimensions with significant difference.Considering impact values, the impact value of gender on metacognitive awareness was low in debugging and information management sub-dimensions with significant difference.Considering the total dimension and subdimensions of the scale, it can be concluded that gender does not cause a significant difference in metacognitive awareness level and the impact value is low in sub-dimensions with significant difference.Yıldırım (2010) reported metacognitive awareness of students of the department of mathematics did not significantly differ by gender.Kışkır (2011) reported metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers did not significantly differ by gender in both total scores and sub-dimension scores.Zulkiply, Kabit and Abd Ghani, (2008) reported metacognitive awareness did not significantly differ by gender.Zakaria, Yazid and Ahmad (2009) in their study into achievements in mathematics and metacognitive awareness levels of students who were studying for the university entrance exam, reported metacognitive awareness level did not significantly differ by gender.Kummin and Rahman (2010) reported metacognitive strategies did not cause significant difference in terms of the gender variable.
Considering the findings about metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers by their field of study, significant difference was not reported in descriptive information, procedural information, monitoring, assessment, debugging and information management sub-dimensions but was reported in situational information and planning sub-dimensions and the total dimension of the scale by the field variable.Low level of impact was determined considering the impact values of the field variable in subdimensions with significant difference and in total dimension of the scale.Oral and Bars (2015) reported total average scores of metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers varied by the field of study.Similarly, Bakioğlu et al. (2015) reported metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers significantly varied by their respective education program.Findings from studies are parallel to the results of this study.It can be suggested that the methods applied and classes taught in teacher's education programs in faculties of education in universities ensure high levels of metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers in general.However, it also can be suggested the fact that the field variable causes significant difference in the total dimension and situational information and planning sub-dimensions causes difference in metacognitive awareness scores for the classes which are specific to their respective fields.
It was determined that the number of books read by prospective teachers, other than textbooks, caused significant difference in metacognitive awareness levels in all sub-dimensions other than debugging and the total dimension of the scale.3and less, 8-11 and 4-7 as well as 12 and more can be given as examples to the duos which constitute the source of the difference in all sub-dimensions with significant difference and in total dimension.Considering the duo of 3 and less and 8-11, those who read between 8-11 books had higher metacognitive awareness levels than those who read 3 and less books in all sub-dimensions with significant difference and in the total dimension.The same applies for 4-7 and 12 and more duos.Those who read 12 and more books had higher metacognitive awareness levels than those who read 4-7 books in all sub-dimensions with significant difference and in total dimension.Based on these facts, it can be concluded that the number of books read by prospective teachers increases metacognitive awareness levels.It is suggested that reading books develops cognitive structure and thinking abilities and improves metacognitive awareness in addition.Therefore, it is suggested that metacognitive awareness levels of prospective teachers can be improved with increased number of books read, other than textbooks.Although no such direct study is available in literature, it is believed that it is important to determine the number of books read improves metacognitive awareness and it should be examined in further studies.
Basing on the fact that the number of books read by prospective teachers, other than textbooks, increases metacognitive awareness, it can be concluded that reading develops capacity to understand what is read and thinking abilities as well as facilitating overcoming obstacles.Studies in the related literature demonstrated reading books enhances the connection between the parts of the brain (Berns, Blaine, Prietula, & Pye, 2013;Howard, 2013).Improved connection between the parts of the brain can allow learners to make efficient deductions (Howard, 2013).In support of this condition, Bloom (2012) reported the capacity to understand what is read allows for learning despite the changes in quality of teaching.
Based on these results, it is believed that it is necessary to further develop metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers by including activities to improve metacognitive awareness in teacher's education programs.In line with this purpose, practices can also be rendered to teach metacognitive strategies within the scope of the classes integrated to develop thinking abilities in these programs.These practices are believed to develop thinking abilities and metacognitive abilities of prospective teachers.Moreover, instructors need to include methods and techniques to develop metacognitive awareness of prospective teachers in their classes.Therefore, it is assumed that prospective teachers with developed metacognitive awareness should convey their own experiences to students when they start teaching and contribute to training generations with higher metacognitive awareness.One of the results of this study is that the number of books read increased metacognitive awareness perception level.Therefore, prospective teachers can improve metacognitive awareness perception levels by increasing the number of books they read other than textbooks.In line with this purpose, it is possible to create reading halls in libraries of each department in faculties of education.It is believed to encourage prospective teachers to read more.

Table 1 .
Distribution of Prospective Teachers According to Gender.

Table 2 .
Distribution of Average Number of Books Other Than Texbooks Read in One Year by Prospective Teachers.

Table 3 .
Distribution of Prospective Teachers According to Fields.

Table 4 .
Scales of Reliability Coefficients of Metacognitive Awareness Inventory by using Internal ConsistencyMethod (Cronbach's Alpha).

Table 5 .
Results of the Independent Sample "t-Test" for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive AwarenessAccording to Gender.

Table 7 .
The Results of ANOVA (one-way) Test for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Declarative Knowledge According to Fields.

Table 8 .
The Values of Average and Standard Deviation for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Procedural Knowledge According to Fields.

Table 9 .
The Results of ANOVA (one-way) Test for Prospective teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Procedural Knowledge According to Fields.

Table 10 .
The Values of Average and Standard Deviation for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Conditional Knowledge According to Fields.

Table 11 .
The

Table 12 .
The Values of Average and Standard Deviation for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Planning According to Fields.

Table 14 .
The Values of Average and Standard Deviation for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Monitoring According to Fields.

Table 15 .
The Results of ANOVA (one-way) Test for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Monitoring According to Fields.

Table 16 .
The Values of Average and Standard Deviation for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Evaluation According to Fields.

Table 17 .
The Results of ANOVA (one-way) Test for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Evaluation According to Fields.

Table 18 .
The Values of Average and Standard Deviation for Prospective Teachers' Level of MetacognitiveAwareness Based on Their Debugging According to Fields.

Table 19 .
The Results of ANOVA (one-way) Test for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Debugging According to Fields.

Table 20 .
The Values of Average and Standard Deviation for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Information Management According to Fields.

Table 21 .
The Results of ANOVA (one-way) Test for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Information Management According to Fields.

Table 22 .
The Values of Average and Standard Deviation for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Total According to Fields.

Table 23 .
The Results of ANOVA (one-way) Test for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Total According to Fields.

Table 24 .
The Values of Average and Standard Deviation for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Total and Sub-Demensions According to The Number of Books They Read.

Table 25 .
The Results of ANOVA (one-way) Test for Prospective Teachers' Level of Metacognitive Awareness Based on Their Total and Sub-Dimensions According to The Number of Books They Read.