2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper presents the results of a study that implemented a metacognitive intervention designed to enhance problem-solving skills in first-year engineering students. Metacognition involves the ability to apply appropriate learning strategies in combination with knowledge of the task and context in order to plan, monitor, and evaluate one's own learning. Students with strong metacognitive skills perform significantly better academically and demonstrate better learning outcomes.

In this study, ninety-six first-year engineering students enrolled in College Algebra in a land-grant institution in the mid-Atlantic region were co-enrolled in an engineering problem-solving course in which the metacognitive intervention was embedded. The intervention consisted of three lectures on metacognition and self-regulation, instructor feedback on students’ problem-solving skills through graded homework, and the inclusion of reflective prompts in all homework assignments to encourage student reflection. Custom-designed word problems integrating algebra and engineering concepts were used throughout the course to promote reflection. For each word problem completed, students were asked to indicate how confident they were that their solution was correct and to explain the reasoning behind their level of confidence. Multiple assessments, each consisting of multiple word problems that integrated mathematical and engineering problem-solving, were administered at different points in the semester.

The goals of the study were to examine: (a) the role of the intervention in developing students’ metacognitive skills, and (b) whether improvements in metacognitive accuracy were associated with improvements in problem-solving performance. Thematic analysis was used to examine qualitative responses to the reflective prompts, identifying specific aspects of problem-solving that students found challenging. For each problem, metacognitive accuracy was calculated by comparing the student’s confidence judgment to their actual performance. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board.

The metacognitive intervention led to improvements in students’ metacognitive accuracy. Furthermore, students who participated in the intervention demonstrated better performance in their College Algebra course compared to first-year engineering students who were not enrolled in the problem solving course. The data revealed that students frequently overestimated the accuracy of their solutions, with overconfidence being especially prominent at the beginning of the semester. We are currently analyzing the data to explore the relationship between metacognitive accuracy and students’ problem-solving performance. This ongoing analysis will inform the refinement of the intervention to better support students in using metacognitive strategies to improve their engineering problem-solving skills. This work is critical as we aim to better prepare students to meet the complex demands of solving real-world engineering problems.