'It's not that I haven't learnt much. It's just that I don't really understand what I'm doing’: metacognition and secondary‐school students

Abstract

In this paper we explore how students understand and develop strategies for coping with the demands and pressures of year 10, which, we argue, are different from those of earlier years. We also examine students' attitudes towards different learning contexts. Data are drawn from a 4‐year longitudinal qualitative study of students' experiences of schooling, following three groups of students in three comprehensive schools during their last four years of secondary school. The paper explores both the context in which students learn and the way in which they develop their learning strategies, focusing on the students' responses to the institutionalized demands of the year‐10 curriculum.

Our data suggest that year 10 brings a considerable shift in the pace and style of learning. The different teaching approaches which students encounter are described, and provide a context for data which show how students themselves see and address their learning problems. Themes cover students' perception of working hard and keeping up; their approaches to managing their social, work and family lives under the pressure of coursework deadlines, and their struggles to come to terms with the requirements of revision and public examinations. Finally, we focus on students' motivation and on the way they develop strategies for coping. In year 10, students are under great pressure to work hard and work fast; ‘keeping up’ becomes synonymous with ability.

Within the year‐10 curriculum the demands of coursework and examinations are very different. Although coursework becomes dominated by deadlines, it builds on earlier skills and relationships learnt through project work. Public examinations, on the other hand, demand new skills of note taking and revision for which students are largely unprepared. Under pressure to cover syllabuses, teachers may resort to a didactic transmission of content, giving students less, rather than more help in navigating their way through it all.

Keywords:

• secondary school
• learning strategies
• examinations
• metacognition
• curriculum
• Key Stage 4

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Harris

Dr Susan Harris is a Research Associate in the Division of Education, University of Sheffield; Professor Gwen Wallade is Reader in Policy Sociology at the University of Derby; Professor Jean Rudduck is Director of Research at Homerton College, Cambridge.