Age and Gender: Determinants of Metacognition among Rural Adolescents

The present study was undertaken to investigate the age and gender differentials in metacognition of rural adolescents (13-16 years). The study was carried out in rural schools of block-I, Ludhiana district. The sample comprised of 240 rural adolescents equally distributed over four grades (7^th, 8^th, 9^th and 10^th grade), two sexes and two socio-economic groups i.e. middle and low socio-economic group. Metacognitive skills of the subjects were assessed using a self-structured questionnaire adapted from Metacognition Inventory (Govil, 2003) and Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (Schraw and Dennison 1994). Results revealed significant gender differentials in metacognitive skills of rural adolescents with major proportion of female respondents having high level of metacognition as well as better mean scores as compared to their male counterparts.