Stronger metacognition, or knowledge and regulation of thinking, is linked to increased learning, problem solving, and academic achievement. Metacognition has primarily been studied using retrospective methods, but these methods limit access to students’ in-the-moment thoughts and actions. Using in-the-moment methods of think aloud interviews and discourse analysis, we investigated first year life science students’ individual metacognition while they solved challenging problems and upper-division biology students’ social metacognition during small-group problem solving.

There is a mental health crisis among undergraduate and graduate students in the sciences, owing to the extraordinary percentages of students who report anxiety and depression. These conditions disproportionately affect students who the scientific community is trying to recruit and retain, including women, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ students, and students with disabilities.