| Metacognitive knowledge is a critical piece of the information literacy puzzle. In a world of exploding information and communications possibilities, the difficulty for users of information systems and services may not lie in finding information but in filtering and integrating it into a cohesive whole. To do this, they must be able to make sense of it, an act that assumes knowledge about one's own information needs, goals and abilities. This type of self-knowledge---called metacognitive knowledge---has three basic components: knowledge of one's self, knowledge of the nature of a cognitive task in relation to one's own cognitive abilities, and knowledge of how and when to effectively use cognitive strategies to complete a cognitive task. Such knowledge, when used in information seeking, may help users to solve complex information problems. There is perhaps no other user group who could benefit more from the development of metacognitive knowledge than adolescents, aged 16 to 18. On the cusp of adulthood, they face many of the complex information problems of adults, but as "novice adults" their depth of knowledge on most topics may be shallow simply because they have only experienced life for a handful of years.;This study used naturalistic research methods to investigate the metacognitive knowledge of adolescents as they searched for, selected and used information for a school-based, inquiry project, within the framework of Kuhlthau's Information Search Process (ISP). It was conducted over a four-month period in a Montreal-area CEGEP (post-secondary educational institutions in Quebec). The participants were students in their first year of CEGEP (equivalent to grade 12). Ten participants, ranging in age from 16 to 18, each kept a written or audio journal in which they recorded their thoughts, feelings, actions, and self-prompting questions, participated in four interviews, three conducted by telephone and one face-to-face, and completed a visualizing exercise (a timeline of their thoughts, feelings, actions and self-prompting questions).;The study identified 13 categories of ISP metacognitive knowledge used by 10 adolescents to complete an inquiry-based school assignment--- knowing your strengths and weaknesses, knowing what you don't know, scaffolding, building a base, parallel thinking, understanding curiosity, communicating, changing course, understanding time and effort, balancing, understanding memory, pulling back and reflecting, and connecting. The 13 categories of ISP metacognitive knowledge were not used uniformly by all the students, all the time; instead the patterns of use were unique to each participant. These categories, as well as the sub-categories that emerged from coding, together form the bones for an emerging a taxonomy of adolescent metacognitive knowledge during the information search process. With further research and development, the taxonomy may provide the framework for a rubric to be used in the teaching and assessment of metacognitive knowledge during the information search process. |
