Measuring meta-intelligence

Question

Does anyone know of any research in measuring metacognitive abilities (i.e. metacomprehension, metamemory, meta-emotions(?), etc) in people? In other words, I'm wondering if the same way we have IQ tests (which I know is a whole other topic of debate), if there would be a way to measure "meta-IQ"?

Answer 1

A good overview on the topic is Metacognition: A Literature Review (E. R. Lai), page 27 has a section assessing the measures of Metacognition.

Flavell (1979) describes assessment tasks that asked children to study a set of items until they were sure they could remember them completely. Children were then tested on their ability to recall all the items.

Another common task was to read a set of written instructions and indicate any omissions, mistakes, or areas of ambiguity. Schneider (2008) observes that the most studied type of procedural metamemory is self-monitoring. Assessments designed to capture this ability include ease of learning judgments, judgments of learning, and feelings of knowing. For example, ease of learning judgments typically ask students to study a set of test materials for a short amount of time and then assess their abilities to remember the material. After the students are tested on the material, their performances are compared to their initial predictions.

Generally assessments focus on one specific area of Metacognition like Metamemory.

See also Development and Validation of an Objective Measure of Metacognition that assess four studies evaluating metacognitive abilities.

Searching around on Google Scholar finds a great deal of studies using and proposing various measures for Metacognition. There's certainly no "standard" like an IQ test, as Metacoginiton: A Literature Review notes, part of the challenge in studying and teaching Metacognitive abilities is due to the lack of focus on them in traditional school curriculum.