EVALUATION OF METACOGNITIVE SKILLS AND REFLECTIVE PRACTICES AMONG STUDENTS WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT AT THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL

Abstract

Metacognitive skills and reflective practices enable students to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning and to learn from experience. Despite their educational importance, limited baseline evidence is available concerning these abilities among school-age students with hearing impairment in Pakistan. This quantitative descriptive-comparative study examined metacognitive skills and reflective practices among 112 Grade 8 students enrolled in public-sector special education institutions in the four districts of Dera Ghazi Khan Division. The entire accessible population was included through census sampling. Data were collected using the 40-item Metacognitive Skills Scale for Hearing Impaired and the 30-item Reflective Practices Questionnaire. Means and standard deviations were calculated to describe baseline levels, while independent-samples t tests and one-way analysis of variance were used to examine differences based on gender and severity of hearing impairment. Overall metacognitive skills were low (M = 2.36, SD = .20). Planning recorded the highest component mean (M = 2.40), followed by evaluating (M = 2.37) and monitoring (M = 2.31). Overall reflective practices were also low (M = 2.40, SD = .22); reflection-in-action was moderate (M = 2.56), whereas reflection-on-action was low (M = 2.25). No statistically significant differences were observed by gender or severity of hearing impairment. The findings indicate a shared need for explicit, classroom support that helps students plan, monitor, evaluate, and reflect on their learning.