Reliability and Validity of a State Metacognitive Inventory: Potential for Alternative Assessment

An assumed advantage of alternative assessments is that they result in more higher level thinking or metacognitive skills. We believe that this advantage should be measured directly and explicitly. Unfortunately, few standardized measures of metacognitive skills (planning, monitoring, cognitive strategies, and awareness) exist. In our studies, for 12th graders, alpha reliability estimates and factor analysis indicated that our metacognitive subscales are reliable (alpha above .70) and unidimensional (one factor per subscale). Because the subscales have only 5 items each, they meet brevity standards. Construct validity of our state metacognitive inventory is acceptable. Results indicate that our state metacognitive inventory yields useful information about both the assessment and students.