title: The mediating role of metacognition in the relationship between executive function and self-regulated learning.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Researchers have demonstrated significant relations among executive function, metacognition, and self-regulated learning. However, prior research emphasized the use of indirect measures of executive function and did not evaluate how specific executive functions are related to participants' self-regulated learning.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The primary goals of the current study were to examine and test the relations among executive function, metacognition, and self-regulated learning as well as to examine how self-regulated learning is informed by executive function.
  
  
  METHODS
  The sample comprised 117 undergraduate students attending a large, Mid-Atlantic research university in the United States.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were individually administered direct and indirect measures of executive function, metacognition, and self-regulated learning. A mediation model specifying the relations among the regulatory constructs was proposed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In multiple linear regression analyses, executive function predicted metacognition and self-regulated learning. Direct measures of inhibition and shifting accounted for a significant amount of the variance in metacognition and self-regulated learning beyond an indirect measure of executive functioning. Separate mediation analyses indicated that metacognition mediated the relationship between executive functioning and self-regulated learning as well as between specific executive functions and self-regulated learning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings of this study are supported by previous research documenting the relations between executive function and self-regulated learning, and extend prior research by examining the manner in which executive function and self-regulated learning are linked. The findings provide initial support for executive functions as key processes, mediated by metacognition, that predict self-regulated learning. Implications for the contribution of executive functions to self-regulated learning are discussed.
authors: Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
authors: D Jake
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7694-9683
authors: DJ
authors: Follmer
authors: Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
authors: Rayne A
authors: RA
authors: Sperling
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D000067489:Metacognition; D000068356:Self-Control / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: executive function; mediation; metacognition; self-regulated learning