Students' alienation from learning: can metacognitive regulation and awareness of the meaning of learning help to overcome it?
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Keywords

alienation
, alienation from learning
metacognitive regulation
meaning loss
life meaning of learning
metacognitive awareness
meaning fullness
psychology of meaning
education
higher educational institutions

Abstract

Introduction. The alienation of students from learning and its consequences are an urgent problem for universities. The study of external and internal factors affecting the state of alienation, including metacognitive and meaning, will be helpful for the creation of prevention and correction programs and reduce the percentage of low academic performance, skipping classes, and deductions. This study is aimed to establish the interrelationships of alienation, metacognitive regulation of activity and the subjectively assessed meaning of learning. Methods. The study involved 209 students aged 17 to 24 years. We used: A test questionnaire "Subjective alienation of educational work", a questionnaire "Metacognitive involvement in activity", and an author's questionnaire to study alienation from education among students of higher educational institutions and its semantic aspects. Results. The analysis showed the presence of negative correlations of the general level of metacognitive regulation of activity with the general indicator of alienation (-0.467, significance at 0.01) and with all scales of the methodology "Subjective alienation of educational work". The level of subjective feeling of fullness of learning with meaning was negatively associated with the general indicator of alienation (-0.564, significance at the level of 0.01) and with all scales of the methodology "Subjective alienation of educational work", and positively associated with the general level of metacognitive regulation of activity (0.471, significance at the level of 0.01). Discussion of the results. The results obtained complement the studies that indicate a significant role of meaning loss, feelings of meaninglessness, the fullness of meaning, and the life meaning of learning in assessing the level of alienation from learning. The relationships between the level of alienation and the level of metacognitive regulation of activity can serve as a starting point for studying how the management of cognition processes and the student's involvement in the learning process are connected. The practical application of the results indicates the importance of increasing the adaptability of students and the importance of specialized training of students to manage their educational activities to reduce the state of alienation and involve them in the educational process.

https://doi.org/10.21702/rpj.2023.2.15
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Copyright (c) 2023 Evgeny A. Pronenko, Margarita E. Belikova, Tatyana P. Skripkina