168-192

Understanding metacognitive terms and theory of mind : an empirical investigation of their relationship in preschool years

• Μισαηλίδη, Πλουσία

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between preschool children’s ability to understand metacognitive terms (e.g., remember, know, guess, conclude, learn) and theory of mind. Two groups of children (N = 88) aged four and five years, respectively, took part in the study. The children were examined in three theory-of-mind tasks (two first-order false belief tasks and one second-order false belief task) as well as on Astington and Pelletier’s Metacognitive Vocabulary Test, which tests the ability to understand the semantic differences between metacognitive terms. The results showed that children’s ability to understand metacognitive terms and their performance on the first-order and second-order theory-of-mind tasks improved significantly with age. Moreover, a significant correlation was found between children’s performance on the first- and second-order theory-of-mind tasks and on the Metacognitive Vocabulary Test. Children with more developed theory of mind skills were better at understanding the semantic differences between metacognitive terms compared to children with less developed ones. Discussion of results focuses on the need to obtain evidence on the direction of causality of the relationship between these two abilities.

• Psychology

• Child psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Cognition
• Statistics

θεωρία του νου, μεταγιγνώσκειν, μεταγνωστικό λεξιλόγιο, metacognition, metacognitive vocabulary, theory of mind

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