Metacognition, Writing and Academic Performance in Colombian and French College Students

The main of this article were: (1) To describe the degree of objectives knowledge and the planning strategies identified by university students in relation to the process of developing written texts, and (2) to establish the link between the students' perception about these processes and the academic success. The hypothesis was that the students that describe a low degree of - metacognitive knowledge and planning strategies used in the process of writing, show low levels of academic success. A comparative and descriptive research design was used with 462 students selected intentionally from two psychology programs (231 Colombian and 231 French students with average age of 18.8 and 20.1 years old respectively). These students completed a questionnaire composed by two scales: Metacognitive Knowledge and Planning Strategies in Writing. It was found that the students acknowledged their metacognitive knowledge used when developing their written texts. The Colombian students described that they use planning strategies occasionally while the French students declared that they use this strategy more frequently. In addition, a positive correlation appeared between the metacognition and the academic success.