A Study On The Relationships Of Logical Reasoning Ability, Metacognition And Academic Achievement Among Primary And Middle School Students

The studies on the factors affecting primary and middle school students' academic achievements have been an issue concerned by lots of psychologists. People used to explore the interactive influences of cognitive and non-intellectual factors on the academic achievements, but paid little attention to the influences of various cognitive factors on students' school achievements and their interaction. This study combined logical reasoning ability, meta-cognition and the level of attention together, and discussed the interaction between the three factors and students' academic achievement, in order to provide some practical suggestions for the education of primary and middle schools from psychological standpoint.Based on the previous studies, this study used the standardized mental scale to test a sample of 674 students selected from three primary and middle schools from Jincheng city. The results indicated as follows:1. The three cognitive factors of primary and middle school students rose step by step as the grade increased, but not synchronically. Relatively speaking, logical reasoning ability developed more precedent than metacognition. The critical period for the development of logical reasoning ability is in grade four, but the level of the metacognition in the period is relatively low. Metacognition developed rapidly in middle school phase, and among this period, grade eight is critical for the development of students' metacognition. The level of attention developed steady on the whole.2. There was no significant sex difference in logical reasoning ability, metacognition and the level of attention among primary and middle school students.3. The correlation coefficients between logical reasoning ability and the level of metacognition and the students Chinese and math achievements showed some significance, there was also significant correlation with the two subjects 'total achievements, but the correlation coefficient between the level of metacognition and students' academic achievements was lower than that between logical reasoning ability and the achievements. There was no significant correlation between the level of attention and their achievements.4. Students which differed in academic achievements were unbalanced in logical reasoning ability, metacognition and attention. The ordinary students performed worse than the overachiever in the level of attention and logical reasoning ability, while both of them showed no significant difference in metacognition, the underachievers performed quite worse in logical reasoning ability, metacognition and the level of attention than the overachievers. Compared with the ordinary, the underachievers performed badly in logical reasoning ability and metacognition, but they had no significant difference in the level of attention.5. Logical reasoning ability could well predict the academic achievements of primary and middle school students, while attention had relatively lower predictability for students' achievements.