The Relationship Between Metacognition and Self-regulation in Young Children

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between theory of mind (ToM) (intention and false belief), metacognition, and self-regulation in preschool children. A related purpose was to investigate the gender and age differences. The sample of the study consisted of 87 preschool children in Southern Egypt. The instruments consisted of two theory-of-mind tasks (intention and false-belief situations), three tasks of metacognition and self- regulation (puzzle arrangement and sorting tasks). Metacognition and self-regulation tasks were evaluated using The Checklist of Independent Learning Development (CHILD, Whitebread et al., 2009). Correlations, t-test, and stepwise multiple regression analyses, using SPSS 18.0, were employed to answer the questions of the study. The results indicated no gender differences in the overall performance on the study variables. A developmental effect was found in favour of the older children in the intention task, puzzle arrangement task, and the total score of ToM. The second task predicted the false-belief task. The findings of the study are discussed and further venues for future research in this area are suggested