In social learning, off-task processing is more sustained

In all the instances of individual learning in this study, when the learner went off-task, his or her metacognitive control processing was generally quickly triggered to guide him or her back into cognitive processing and engagement with the learning task. However, this was not the case with the pair or group-learning scenarios. In these cases, when learners went off-task, they regularly spent a sustained amount of time off-task. In other words, socially shared metacognition did not respond as quickly to off-task processing as did individual metacognitive processing.

Affective processing impacts/is impacted by metacognition and cognition

When affective processing occurs, it interrupts other forms of processing and, as such, interrupts the progress of learning. This might be the result of cognition or metacognition (or even physical processing: ‘I’m so hot’ leading to T really feel negatively disposed to doing this task’) and can have both a positive or negative impact on learning, when the learner cycles back to metacognitive or cognitive processing.

• • Affective processing can be impacted by cognition, for example: When a learner is moving through a learning task with ease and speed, these can lead to expressions of positive emotions about himself or herself and about the learning progress.
• • Affective processing can be impacted by metacognition, for example: When a learner is feeling frustrated by learning task, metacognition processing can re-focus him or her on the learning task or enable him or her to choose a different element of the learning task to continue with This, in turn, can alter the affective state.
• • Affective processing can impact cognition, for example: If a learner is experiencing a negative mood, it may impact negatively on cognition through an inability to concentrate on the task under examination.
• • Affective processing can impact metacognition, for example: If a learner has a positive disposition to a learning task, he or she may use his or her metacognitive processing capacity to focus on completing the task to the optimum of his or her ability, rather than to a lesser, passable degree.