ABSTRACT
Competent academic performance is complex, the product of many interactions among students’ knowledge of strategies; metacognitive understandings about when, where, and how to use strategies students know; prior knowledge based on experiences in the real world and in symbolic worlds (e.g., text, television); and motivational beliefs (e.g., “I can learn what is taught in school by expending effort,” is a belief supporting motivation; “I cannot learn what is taught because I have low ability,” undermines motivation; Borkowski, Carr, Rellinger, & Pressley, 1990; Pressley, Borkowski, & Schneider, 1989). The evidence is growing that diverse academic tasks such as writing, reading comprehension, and mathematical problem solving can be understood in terms of these components (see Pressley & Associates, 1990).
