Can epistemic practices contribute to the development of metacognitive skills?

Abstract

Studies in Science Education and Cognitive Sciences have indicated the need to address social aspects in order to promote in the classroom the students' thought processes on aspects related to the construction and justification of understanding about science and phenomena of the natural world. However, many of these studies have addressed only cognition, suppressing metacognition, that is, the knowledge that each student has of their own cognitive processes and products, including the monitoring and evaluation of this cognitive system. The aim of this paper is to consider the role of epistemic practices as promoters of metacognitive competences in didactic actions in science teaching. The developed reflection and discussion suggests a relationship between the mobilization of epistemic practices and the development of metacognitive competences, with regard to the metacognitive elements that constitute the regulation of cognition (planning, monitoring, evaluation, information management and debugging). This relationship consolidates learning as a (meta)cognitive and social process. As prospects for future studies, it will be important to analyze and refine the potential of metacognition, allied to epistemic practices, as pedagogical guiding in the educational field, and as a theoretical-methodological framework.