metacognitive

adjective

meta·​cog·​ni·​tive ˌme-tə-ˈkäg-nə-tiv 

: of or relating to the awareness or analysis of one's own learning or thinking processes : of or relating to metacognition

metacognitive skills

Encourage your child to explain their thinking. When they make decisions or solve problems, ask "How did you figure that out?" This metacognitive practice strengthens reasoning abilities.

—TimesDaily.com

Examples of metacognitive in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

How Travel Can Benefit Children From a psychological standpoint, travel develops emotional intelligence, metacognitive (thinking about your thinking) and problem-solving skills. — Rebecca Ann Hughes, Forbes.com, 25 June 2026

The next phase in our work involves validating the framework with extensive testing, measuring how metacognitive monitoring improves performance across diverse tasks, and extending the framework to start reasoning about reasoning, or metareasoning. — Ricky J. Sethi, The Conversation, 26 Jan. 2026

In Warhead, Wright explains how armed conflict impacts every part of our brain, from the instinctive reflexes of our reptilian brainstem to the cognitive and metacognitive functions of the prefrontal cortex. — Big Think, 18 Oct. 2025

This metacognitive pedagogical approach is an effective way to engage students in archival research and reflect on their own news consumption and attention as first-year college students. — Joshua Finnell, JSTOR Daily, 1 Oct. 2025

Word History

Etymology

meta- + cognitive

First Known Use

1972, in the meaning defined above