Metacognitive writing strategies of Sri Lankan secondary school children

tuwakku@yahoo.c m Abstract: This study was conducted to identify metacognitive strategies used by secondary school children in the three stages of writing process, to identify their distribution within metacognitive strands and metacognitive fi elds, and to identify whether they differ according to rural / urban schools, grades and sex. 408 observation notes, written exercises from 278 Mother Tongue lessons, 289 interviews and responses to a questionnaire were collected from 678 Grade 6-10 students. Qualitative data were coded, frequencies calculated and differences between proportions were Z tested. Quantitative data were clustered and analyzed using Chi square and Factor analysis. Writing Stage is dominant in the Writing Process of Grades 6 -10 students of both sexes and in rural / urban schools. Planning and Revising stages are mixed with the Writing Stage. The Planning Stage is dominated by an explanation of the lesson by the teacher. Students do not show an awareness or regulation of metacognitive strategies in the Planning of Writing. Knowledge Telling Process can be found in the Writing Stage. Revising Stage is dominated by mechanical and surface level changes. There is a tendency towards a boy-girl dichotomy. Girls emphasize the Planning Stage whereas the boys emphasize the Writing Stage.


INTRODUCTION
fi rst coined the term metacognition as "one's knowledge concerning one's own cognitive processes and products or anything related to them, e.g. the learning related properties of information and data".He further describes metacognition as "the active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes in relation to the cognitive objects or data on which they bear, usually in the service of some concrete goal or objective" (Flavell, 1976).There is a growing theoretical and practical interest in the topic of metacognition: how we monitor and control our own mental processes (Pintrich, 1999).Metacognition has made contributions to two applied domains, namely education, specially applications towards improving learning and training and legal contexts (Schwartz & Perfect, 2002).An important aspect of learning is using Cognitive and Metacognitive strategies to control and regulate students' own learning.
Metacognition is a construct similar to Executive Decision Making Process of Information Processing System.Metacognition is also an aspect of Self-regulation.One of the schools of thought that has contributed to enhance the knowledge in the construct of Self-regulated Learning is 'Metacognition and Regulation Styles' (Boekaerts, 1999).Many research studies on Self-regulated Learning play a major role in understanding classroom learning processes and facilitating the intellectual development of the child, (Newman, 1990;Zimmerman, & Bandura, 1994;Schunk, & Zimmerman, 1994;Boekaerts, & Minnaert, 1999) centered on cognitive and metacognitive strategies such as mnemonic encoding and self-monitoring (Zimmerman, & Bandura, 1994).According to the constructivist viewpoint, the learner should have a control over his or her own learning because the responsibility is with him in sensitizing with the learning and the student needs cognitive and metacognitive knowledge and skills to do this successfully.
Although, as a new construct, the concept of Selfregulated Learning is embraced by policy makers, teachers, educationists and parents (Boekaerts, 1999), the research emphasis in Sri Lanka on the concept of metacognition is not grounded and its application at classroom level is yet to be identifi ed.
Metacognitive skills and strategies can be used in any subject area of school curriculum and in the thought processes of children such as attention, motivation, learning, memory, and understanding (Linn, 1986;Nickerson, 1986;Carrol, 1986).
Further, there are 'General metacognitive skills and strategies' that can be applied across different subject areas or mental processes and 'Specifi c metacognitive skills and strategies' that can be used in specifi c subject areas or mental processes.The present study focuses on a specifi c subject area, i.e. writing of secondary school children, which according to Scardamalia & Bereiter (1986a) has gained academic attention recently, although it had been neglected until now.
Four aspects of writing have been focused on in research literature on Writing and the present study focuses on the aspect of 'incidents and processes occurred in the mind during Writing in the classroom setting.
Learning strategies that display Knowledge, Awareness, Monitoring and Controlling have been identifi ed by researchers in different subject areas and mental processes.According to Paris, Saarnio, & Cross (1986), the strategies are skimming, rereading, paraphrasing, and summarizing.Ellis (1986) cited planning, checking, testing, revising and evaluation as strategies.Baird (1986) cites confi rmation of the topic, evaluation of knowledge, reviewing the structure of the message, extracting important sections, and evaluating outcome of learning as learning strategies.Moely, Hart, Santulli, Leal, Johnson, Rao, & Burney (1986) named rehearsal, chunking, categorization, verbal elaboration, and note taking as general strategies.Weinstein, & Mayer (1986) categorize strategies into eight as basic rehearsal strategies, complex rehearsal strategies, basic elaboration strategies, complex elaboration strategies, basic organizational strategies, complex organizational strategies, comprehension monitoring strategies, and affective and motivational strategies.
In Sri Lanka, Gorrell, Dharmadasa, Kularatne, & Abeyratne (1996) found that older children in primary classes tend to use more complex strategies and younger children tend to use basic learning strategies.Use of strategies by children also differed according to the subjects being studied.Further, Sri Lankan primary school children function effectively and strategically in their classroom performances.Gorrell, Dharmadasa, & Dharmadasa (1999) studied learning strategies of self evaluation, organization and transformation, goal setting, planning, seeking information, self monitoring, adjusting environment, rehearsing, memorizing, seeking peer help, and seeking help from parents and teachers, used in problem solving.
Use of specifi c strategies in the writing behaviour is focused on in the present study.Hence metacognition is defi ned, for the purpose of this study as the knowledge, awareness and monitoring and the controlling of that knowledge and awareness, in using strategies for writing.
The present research focuses on the Writing Strategies, and 'knowledge and awareness' of children on the Writing Strategies and the 'monitoring, controlling, and regulating of such 'knowledge and awareness' in the three stages of the Writing Process: Planning, Writing and Revising.

Writing Process
Writing is a complex activity (Archibald, & Jeffery, 2000).It also has a recursive process.The present trend of research into the writing of children focuses on the process of writing rather than on the product of writing, and on the recursive nature of writing rather than the linear nature of writing (Rohman, 1965; & Schwartz, 1995).In Sri Lanka, a study on Metacognitive Writing is yet to be completed.

OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the research were to identify metacognitive strategies used by secondary school children (Grades 6-10) in the three stages of Writing Process, to identify distribution patterns of metacognitive strategies used by secondary school children within 'metacognitive strands (Awareness and Regulation)' and 'metacognitive fi elds (Generating ideas, Goal setting, Organization, Self monitoring and Self evaluation)'; to identify the nature of their knowledge/ awareness and monitoring / regulation of metacognitive strategies and to identify whether the metacognitive strategies used differ according to the type of school (rural / urban), grade (6)(7)(8)(9)(10) and sex (boy / girl).Figure 1 shows the conceptual model of the study.

METHODOLOGY
The sample comprised 725 children (Male = 363; Female = 362) of Grade 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 from four purposively selected schools (Urban = 2; Rural = 2).A sub sample of 120 children was used to collect 408 observation notes and written exercises as classroom artifacts.They were collected from 278 Mother Tongue lessons by 12 data collectors, including the researcher.Two hundred and eighty nine interviews were conducted with the children focusing on their writing behaviour (Table 1).
Based on the data collected from the sub sample of 120 children, a questionnaire was developed to collect data from the sample of 725 students.overlapping in the Writing Process, they can be taken separately to facilitate description (Hartley, 1994).
An important time log of Writing should be focused on Planning Stage of Writing where the goal setting occurs (Murray, 1978;Flower, & Hays, 1980a;Moffett, 1982;Graves, 1983;Rohman, 1983).Goal setting is one important aspect of good writing (Page-Voth, & Graham, 1999).
During the second stage of Writing Process, i.e. the Writing Stage, ideas are translated into the written mode.The writer is expected to perform many tasks during this period and due to this, writing becomes an unusually complex task (Biggs, Lai, Tang, & Lavelle, 1999).
In American Public Schools many children do not revise competently and effectively (Fitsgerald, & Markman, 1987;Fitzgerald, 1987;Graham, MacArthur, & Schwartz, 1995).They focus on mechanical and word-level changes (Bridwell, 1980   The quantitative data derived from the questionnaire, that were used to study the generalizability of patterns identifi ed from 120 students, were analyzed using 'Hierarchical tree cluster analysis' to identify speculative patterns, 'Chi square test' to identify confi rmed patterns and 'Factor analysis' to identify specifi c patterns.

Delimitations and Limitations
The study focused on writing activities performed as a part of curriculum implementation in the selected grades.Specifi cally designed writing activities by the researcher were not used since the objective was to identify metacognitive strategies in writing in the natural classroom setting.A secondary grade, Grade 11 was not included due to its exam oriented writing behaviour.
Only 604 children responded to the questionnaire, due to the involvement of the other children in pre assigned school activities (Table 2).

Grand Total
It could be identifi ed that there were two sub periods in Mother tongue lessons, the time taken by the teacher to teach and the time taken by the student to write.The average percentage of time in which, 120 children of the sub sample engaged in the writing during their observed 278 Mother Tongue lessons was 60% (Rural 67%, Urban 54%).Gradewise percentages were 58% (Grade 6), 58% (Grade 7), 67% (Grade 8), 62% (Grade 9), and 56% (Grade 10) (Table 3). During

Metacognitive strategies used in each stage of the Writing Process: Observation data
When the notes taken during the lesson observations were translated into graphs (Fig. 2 & 3) to accentuate patterns, the relative expansion of stages of writing could be further identifi ed.In the graphs, the process of writing of children were depicted through signs which are cited below the Fig. 2 as a key.In some places of the graphs, to highlight the stages of writing process, words have been written using English phonetic scripts.As an example in the Fig. 2 Sinhala word 'vivida' (English meaning = various) is written as 'vivida'.
According to the patterns in the graphs, children did

Metacognitive strategies used in each stage of the Writing Process: Analysis of qualitative data
The writing stage which dominated the writing process could also be identifi ed from the extracts of interview data.

The Planning of Writing
The Planning of Writing is mainly a mental process that could not be visible through external behaviours, i.e.Children entered the Writing Stage with 'awareness on the present cognitive status' and they had the awareness of the 'ongoing writing activity'.'While writing they thought about the writing' and 'took decisions on paragraphing and organizing the written work'.Due to this metacognitive awareness during the Writing Stage, they could identify the places where revisions were necessary and edit the written work accordingly (Fig. 9).
Researcher : You wrote the words "Parakrama Samudraya" and thought for a while.Why? Student : I thought whether it was right.Researcher : Why did you cut a word in the fourth line of the third paragraph?Student : I thought about a better word    When the interview data were analysed according to fi ve matacognitive fi elds, the fi eld of generating ideas seemed to overlap with the Writing Stage.

The Revision Stage
Twelve percent of the children who entered the Revision Stage of Writing Process as well as others who revised the writing, while they were still at the Writing Stage tended to make mechanical changes and surface level changes.There was no metacognitive awareness of deep level revising.
It was observed that the fi elds of self evaluation and organization were mixing with the Revision Stage, when the interview data were analysed according to fi ve metacognitive fi elds,.
As a whole the self regulation fi eld could not be found in the writing behaviour of secondary school children.

Metacognitive emphasis on each stage of the Writing Process: Quantitative analysis of interview data
The fact that the Writing Stage dominated the Writing Process could also be identifi ed from the quantifi ed interview data.2481 steps of 289 interviews were read, coded and analyzed quantitatively to identify the distribution of student ideas in the three stages of the Writing Process, the fi ve fi elds of metacognition and the 72 metacognitive strategies. Of

Emphasis on each Metacognitive Field: Quantifi ed interview data
Out of the Metacognitive Fields, Generating Ideas, Organization, Monitoring and Evaluation were mentioned 26%, 22%, 24%, and 20% respectively of the total terms (5369) as against 8% on Goal Setting.The less emphasis on Goal Setting is signifi cant (Table 8).Signifi cantly less emphasis on Goal Setting was established when data was analyzed according to variables of sex and environment of the school.According to grades, however, there was no signifi cant difference between metacognitive fi elds.Girls set goals before writing than boys and boys tended to organize writing during the Writing Stage.
The Writing Style of telling ideas during the Writing Stage, gained from the teacher during the period of explaining the lesson could be visible.Since the Goal Setting was not prominent, children use knowledge telling strategies rather than knowledge transforming strategies in their writing.

Emphasis on each Metacognitive Strategy: Quantitative analysis of interview data
Out of the 72 metacognitive strategies in writing considered in the study, 40  Seventy-two metacognitive strategies were classifi ed into nine categories, based on their ranks and the most emphasized metacognitive strategies and least emphasized metacognitive strategies were identifi ed.
Out of the most emphasized metacognitive strategies fi ve were related to Planning Stage and three were related to Writing Stage.None of the strategies were related to Revision.Strategies related to Planning were linked with the mental processes of children that help them to gain information from the lesson taught by the teacher using their memory and readiness of the child for learning.The metacognitive strategy, 'checking the effectiveness of the approached solution' ranked ninth was the fi rst metacognitive strategy related to Revision that was found in the list and until 27th rank, no other strategy related to Revision would be found in the ranking list showing less emphasis on Revision strategies.The emphasis placed on product of Writing has to be changed to an emphasis on process of writing at the classroom level teaching learning process.The Planning Stage was dominated by teacher explanations and providing facts about the lesson.This period can be used to enlighten the Metacognitive strategies of children.However children do memorize as a strategy during the lesson explaining stage.Memorization is the fourth in rank out of the 72 metacognitive strategies (Table 9).

Patterns Emerging from the Sample of 725 Students
The responses for the 113 items developed to represent metacognitive strategies in the Writing process in the structured questionnaire were analyzed in three stages to see whether the fi ndings of the sub sample could be generalized to the selected classrooms with 725 children.

Hierarchical Tree Cluster Analysis
The speculative patterns that emerged from Hierarchical Tree Cluster analysis showed a similarity in metacognitive strategies used by boys and girls in rural and urban schools.

Chi Square Test
Chi square test on 113 items that represented metacognitive strategies in writing of the questionnaire confi rmed the distanced pattern between the Planning / Revision Stages and the Writing Stage.Also the test confi rmed the mixture of Planning and Revision behaviour with the Writing Stage i.e. children's behaviour of Planning and Revising while they were writing.
Seventy three percent of the items of the questionnaire did not signifi cantly relate to the variable of school and 70% of the items of the questionnaire did not signifi cantly relate to the school grades.However, only 46% of the items of the questionnaire did not signifi cantly relate to the variable of sex.Hence it seems that although there is no division between schools and grades, there is a tendency towards girl -boy dichotomy.
The 30 items out of 113 of the questionnaire that were not signifi cantly related to school, grade and sex of the child were categorized into three stages of Writing Process (Table 10) to identify common metacognitive strategies for all children in the sample and their distribution in the stages of the writing process.Accordingly seven items related to Planning indicates the 'engagement in mental pre-writing' with less cognitive effort.Also the 'using of drafts to organize ideas effectively' and other complex Planning strategies are weak in the writing behaviour of the children.As a result when writing, children 'fi rst write one sentence and then think about one by one about the other sentences' rather than using prior planning during the Planning Stage to write effectively during the Writing Stage.
Twelve items related to Writing Stage showed the diffi culties children were facing due to lack of planning and external factors that infl uenced the writing task.'The diffi culty in writing the fi rst sentence', 'forgetting of words while writing' were the diffi culties faced due to poor pre-planning.'Hindrance or disturbances of friends', 'looking at writing of others' were the external factors that infl uenced writing.However children could 'add extra facts to the appropriate places while they were writing' and 'concentrate on letters omitted'.Hence they are in a position to regulate their writing at the Writing Stage.
Seven items related to Revision indicate the awareness about the revision behavior during the Writing Stage.The revision made during the Writing Stage, however, was limited to mechanical and surface level changes.They were not aware about the deep level revising.They were also not aware of the need for revision after the Writing Stage as they were 'content with the written work' and their speculation on their own writing was 'a success'.

Factor Analysis
The specifi c patterns identifi ed through factor analysis confi rm the patterns that emerged so far.The 31 items of the questionnaire that were signifi cantly related to school, 34 items signifi cantly related to grade and 61 items signifi cantly related to sex of the child were categorized into 11, 11, and 4 factors respectively and they were compared with the three stages of Writing Process, metacognitive strands and specifi c metacognitive strategies (

CONCLUSIONS
The Planning Stage of children is dominated by explanation of the lesson by the teacher, which gives children ideas that can be used in the Writing Stage.
The metacognitive strategies used in the Planning Stage are 'awareness about the assigned writing task', 'memorizing', 'self-evaluation', 'understanding the necessity for writing', 'seeking information', 'adjusting facts in mind', and 'evaluating the need for writing'.The lesser used strategies in the Planning stage are 'summarizing basic facts', 'rewriting as facts', 'mnemonic', 'self instructional coding', 'thinking using more than two media', 'classifi cation of basic facts, 'breaking into parts', 'keeping reports / notes', 'identifi cation of alternative concepts', and 'adjusting the environment'.Metacognitive fi eld of 'Goal setting' is not used for Planning.Students do not show an awareness or regulation of metacognitive strategies in metacognitive strands on Planning.
The metacognitive strategies used in the Writing Stage are 'self-regulation of Writing', 'activating cognitive processes about Writing', 'showing awareness on present cognitive and emotional status in the Writing Process' and 'self-monitoring of progress'.Least used metacognitive strategy is 'adjusting the beginning, middle and end aspects of the Writing activity while facing external The emphasis placed on product of Writing has to • be changed to an emphasis on the process of writing at the classroom level teaching-learning process.
Even the sex wise analysis shows less importance being given to Planning (Table 13).
Sculptural Writing Style could be identifi ed due to the Planning free writing (Table 12).

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Conceptual model of the study not spend time for Planning and right away started writing.During the explanation of lessons by teachers, only three children 'took notes independently' by way of writing the meaning of diffi cult words, showing the metacognitive regulation behaviour.During the explaining of lessons, however, mental metacognitive strategies of 'identifying the necessity for writing', 'knowledge on the specifi c task and task diffi culty', 'using prior knowledge' and 'identifying the goal of writing' were emerging in the minds of the children.Children tend to begin writing at once as the teacher wants them to start writing, based on this basic conceptual springboard.Major parts of graphs are dominated by the Writing Stage of the Writing Process indicating the importance children place on the Writing Stage.Hence a Writing Stage dominated Writing Process could be identifi ed.As revision is not a separate section of the Writing Process, it mixes with the Writing Stage.Accordingly, children revised while writing the text, not after fi nishing the text.Hence, a recursive process of writing could be identifi ed.Further, their revisions were limited to mechanical revisions i.e.Writing on the letters to have them clearer, preparation of vowel sounds, colouring letters to make them prominent and making surface level changes of the text i.e.Striking off written words, writing new words, writing correct letters / words for incorrect ones.

Figure 2 :Figure 3 :
Figure 2: Graph showing the fl ow of writing of child A65F

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: An extract from an interview with the child B105F

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: An extract from an interview with the child

Figure 7 :
Figure 7: An extract from an interview with the child B102M

Figure 8 :
Figure 8: An extract from an interview with the child B83M

Figure 9 :
Figure 9: An extract from an interview with the child B95F

Figure 10 :Figure 11 :
Figure 10: An extract from an interview with the child C66F

Figure 12 :
Figure 12: An extract from an interview with the child B103M

Table 1 :
Mother Tongue lessons (Interviews and Observations)

Table 2 : Student responses to questionnaire Environment of school Sex of the child Grades 6 7 8 9 10
the observation of Writing activities by 12 observers, children entered into the Writing stage of the Writing process in 408 instances.Out of the 408 instances, Planning stage of the Writing process was observed in 19% of the instances (Rural 17%, Urban 21%) and Revising in 12% of the instances (Rural 5%, Urban 21%).The main reason for the less time period for Revision was the limited 40 minute time period for lessons.During the Writing stage, however, children engaged in Planning in 65% of the instances (Rural 62%, Urban 67%) and in Revising in 75% of the instances (Rural 68%, Urban 82%).Hence, Writing stage was dominant in the Writing Process of male and female students in both urban and rural schools and in Grades 6-10 students.Rather than being in two separate stages, Planning and Revision were mixed in the Writing stage, because children tended to plan and revise while Writing.

Table 3 :
Relative time spent on each stage of writing

Table 4 :
the total number of times mentioned (3715), Writing Stage was mentioned in 49%, as against 31% on the Planning Stage and 20% on the Revising Stage.The emphasis on Writing Stage as against the other two stages and on Planning Stage against Revision Stage was signifi cant at 0.5 (Table4).Hence, the dominance of the Writing Stage could be discerned in the Writing Process.Distribution and signifi cance of expressed ideas of students according to stages of writing When the data were analyzed according to variables of sex, environment of the school (Rural/Urban) and grade (6, 7, 8, 9, 10), emphasis on the Writing Stage could be identifi ed (Tables5, 6 &7).However, girls emphasize the Planning Stage whereas boys emphasize the Writing Stage and urban students emphasize the Planning Stage and rural students emphasize the Writing Stage.Grade 6 students emphasize Planning and Writing Stages signifi cantly and Grade 8 and 9 students emphasize Writing Stage as against Planning signifi cantly.Further, Grade 8 students emphasize Planning than Revision.

Table 5 :
Distribution and signifi cance of expressed ideas of students according to stages of writing and sex of the student

Table 6 :
Distribution and signifi cance of expressed ideas of students according to stages of writing and environment of the school

Table 7 :
Ideas expressed by students according to stages of writing and grades

Table 8 :
Expressed ideas of students according to fi elds of metacognition

Table 9 :
Ranks of specifi c metocognitive strategies according to the ideas of students

Table 10 :
Distribution of items in the questionnaire which are not signifi cantly related to school, grade and sex according to stages of writing

Table 11 ,
12 & 13).Planning was shown only in the fourth factor.Regulation of Planning was not included in any of the factors and Revision was shown only in the seventh factor.Hence according to the factor analysis on school, a Writing Style dominated by Writing and less emphasized by Planning and Revision could be identifi ed.Although children have specifi c writing strategies, their awareness and regulation of such strategies have less importance (Table11).Grade wise analysis also shows less importance being given to the Planning Stage and more importance given to the Writing and Revising Stages in the fi rst four factors.In the 5th factor, Planning is seen but with a mixture of Writing and Revising, emphasizing its lower independence.Although Writing and Revising is visible in the fi rst factor, awareness and regulation of strategies are prominent, and they are controlled by external factors and internal factors of the student.

Table 11 :
Factors according to school

Table 12 :
Factors according to GradesOut of the 11 factors related to school, the fi rst, second and third factors do not include metacognitive strategies related to Planning and Revision.Although awareness and strategies were included in the third factor, visible

Table 13 :
Factors according to sex of students Factor 2 No Planning.Writing according to teacher instructions and texts and experiences (Related items of questionnaire 101, 11) Writing without Planning.Awareness on the diffi culty of Writing.Writing behaviour according to external variables.No goal setting and self regulation.(Relateditems of questionnaire 14, 24, 57, 58, 72, 89) infl uences'.A mechanical and surface level Revising Style can be identifi ed among students.Deep level changes are not found.The only metacognitive strategy used in Revising Stage is 'checking the product of Writing'.Least used metacognitive strategies for Revising are 'summarizing/ paraphrasing', 'seeing his/ her own written work as a reader', 'predicting new incidents', 'recreating expected meaning' and 'taking necessary steps to add extra information'.'KnowledgeTellingProcess'rather than 'Knowledge Transformation Process' can be found in the Writing Process of secondary school children proving the theory of writing suggested by Scardamalia and Bereiter.Metacognitive strategies used by students, their awareness of those and the way they regulated metacognitive strategies do not differ according to rural schools and urban schools.Writing characteristics of Grade 6 children are distanced from Grade 7, 8, 9, and 10.There is no signifi cant difference between girls and boys on ideas of Revising Stage.However there is a tendency towards a boy -girl dichotomy with regard to using metacognitive strategies in the Writing Process.Girls emphasize the Planning Stage than boys and boys emphasize the Writing Stage than girls.A hunch, which needs further research to be confi rmed, can be found about the sculpture style of writing of grade 6 children as against the Engineering style of writing of grade 10 children.SUGGESTIONSDue to the lack of emphasis on Planning and Revising in the Writing Process at classroom level, it is necessary to enhance the quality of written work / writing assignments of students.Therefore: