Differential Effect of Thinking Aloud and Agree/Disagree Metacognitive Strategies on the Three Levels of Students' Academic Performance in Secondary School Science

This research determined the influence of metacognitive strategies on the three levels (high, moderate and low level) of student’s academic performance and to also assessed the difference in the academic performance of students that were taught using thinking aloud and agree/disagree metacognitive strategies instructional strategies. The study adopted pretest, post-test, control group experimental design. A total sample of 100 secondary school science students was used, with 50 in the experimental group and 50 in the control group; the experimental group received treatment using the "thinking aloud" (36 students) and "agree/disagree" (14 students) instructional strategies, while the control group was taught using the conventional method. A thirty- multiple choice Physics, Chemistry and Biology Performance Test (PCBPT) was used to measure students’ academic performance in Physics, Chemistry and Biology subjects. The findings derived from the collected data revealed that science students demonstrated a moderate level of academic performance. No significant difference was observed in the performance of science students taught using the thinking-aloud and agree/disagree instructional strategies. However, the experimental group taught with metacognitive strategies showed a significantly higher mean gain (4.96) than the conventional group (1.20), p < 0.05, indicating the effectiveness of the strategy. Consequently, it is recommended that teachers in science education incorporate metacognitive strategies, particularly in this era where teaching approaches prioritize a child-centered methodology and also, use to validate the answers students provide to ensure it is not a copy and paste AI generated answers.