Fostering Student Metacognition and

Personal Epistemology in the Physics

Classroom Through the Pedagogical use of
Mnemonic Strategies
Michael Paul Lukie

Abstract
Students can use memorized mnemonic strategies
taught to them by their physics teachers as a way to
help them remember complicated formulas. However,
many students might not develop a deep conceptual
understanding of physics as a result of the use of such
strategies. This theoretical paper proposes that physics
teachers can use the teaching and understanding of
mnemonic strategies, as one form of cognitive strategy,
to foster students metacognition and their personal
epistemology by focusing their attention on what it
means to understand and to solve physics problems.
Research suggests that most physics students adopt a
surface approach to learning in terms of doing exercises and learning formulas (Prosser, Walker and Millar
1996) and that they do not understand the requisite
procedures required to learn and understand that
material (Thomas 2012b, 33). The mnemonic device
would be presented as such a requisite procedure,
providing the physics teacher with an opportunity to
teach students about their metacognitive knowledge,
control and awareness (Flavel 1979) about when, why
and how to use the mnemonic device. To further such
an understanding of the nature of physics and physics
problem solving, it is important that students develop
their personal epistemology, or what Hofer (2001)
defines as knowing about knowing (p363). This is
because epistemological understanding is fundamental
to students understanding and critical thinking development. It is proposed that teachers can use mnemonic
devices to develop their students epistemological
sophistication by elucidating and promoting the
ASEJ, Volume 44, Number 1, August 2015

e pistemological assumptions that underlie their critical

thinking. If the teachers promote a strictly objective
absolutism by providing the student with a mnemonic
device to memorize and apply narrowly, then knowledge is seen by students as simply accumulating from
textbook-like facts and is disconnected from the human
mind. However, if teachers promote a constructivist
epistemology such that students, after initial exposure
to mnemonic devices, are encouraged to develop their
own mnemonic device(s), then knowledge may be seen
by students as a theory of mind that recognises the
primacy of humans as knowledge constructors capable
of generating a multiplicity of valid representations of
reality (Kuhn 1999, 22). Since many physics students
also concurrently study mathematics, the transfer and
durability of the mnemonic device is important for
other domains and metacognition is seen as a potential mediator of improvement (Georghiades 2000, 119)
for this transfer. As a result of students developing
mnemonic devices, they will develop their metacognitive skills, personal epistemological sophistication and
the knowledge about when and why to select and
apply strategies that are most appropriate for a problem (Taasoobshirazi and Farley 2013, 448).

Introduction
This theoretical paper proposes that physics teachers might use the teaching and understanding of
mnemonic strategies, as one form of cognitive strategy,
to foster students metacognition and their personal
epistemology by focusing their attention on what it
means to understand and to solve physics problems.
25

Since students who are more adaptively metacognitive

are typically more successful learners than those who
are less adaptively metacognitive (Thomas 2013,4),
it is important for physics teachers to promote metacognition as part of their pedagogical practice. Further,
students are typically unaware that there are different
ways of knowing; many students fall into an objectivist
epistemology, where knowledge is considered by them
to be contained in textbooks and independent of a
thinking being (Lorsbach and Tobin 1992,1). Objectivism, according to Roth and Roychoudhury (1994) is the
default epistemology (p26) predominant in most
schools; Lorsbach and Tobin (1992) agree, writing that
the objectivist epistemology is dominant in most educational settings today (p1). Many physics students
are accustomed to learning the truths found in textbooks, and science teaching has traditionally focused
on the direct transmission of these science truths (Roth
and Roychoudhury 1994).
Many physics teachers provide students with mnemonic strategies as a way to help them remember
complicated formulas, but students might not develop
a deep conceptual understanding of physics as a result
of the use of such strategies. However, if teachers
promote a constructivist epistemology such that the
students, after initial exposure to mnemonic devices,
are encouraged to develop their own mnemonic
device(s), then students may replace the notion of
truth with the notion of viability, since there are
many alternative constructions of reality that may exist,
none of which can ever claim truth for itself. Roth
and Roychoudhury contend that the constructivist
position is a more mature form of knowing and that
many educators have accepted constructivism as a
more appropriate set of beliefs to direct teaching and
learning (Roth and Roychoudhury 1994,7).
I have been teaching high school physics at the
University of Winnipeg since 2003 but have only recently begun to incorporate metacognition and student epistemology into my regular teaching practice.
I have begun teaching students about metacognition
and their personal epistemology when I have been
teaching mnemonic strategies within the physics kinematics unit, and have found that my students report
a greater understanding about their thinking and the
way they know how they know. This paper is being
written for physics teachers who teach mnemonic
strategies to their students; the suggestion is made
that the teaching of mnemonic strategies may be an
26

opportunity to also teach students about metacognition and epistemology. A brief review of the literature
related to metacognition and epistemology is presented. I then examine the mnemonic device, the
extent to which the literature reports how students
use these devices as cognitive strategies to assist their
learning and how metacognition may assist students
in retaining these strategies for longer periods of time.
Finally, I present how a physics teacher may use the
mnemonic device in a classroom setting to facilitate
the instruction of metacognition and student personal
epistemology.

Mnemonic Devices
The evidence for the effectiveness of mnemonic
devices to support metacognitive skills is supported
in the literature. Thomas writes that an effective science learner will possess cognitive strategies for
memorizing science material that they consider to be
important and that these strategies may include the
use of acronyms and mnemonics (Thomas 2012b, 32).
Kolencik and Hillwig (2011) write that mnemonic devices may be used to assist students in remembering
content information that would be otherwise difficult
for students to recall because the mnemonic helps
students to connect, to construct and to relate their
thinking to the content. Further, Kolencik and Hillwig
(2011) add that the key idea is that by coding information using vivid mental images, students can reliably
code both information and the structure of information, thus, using a type of metacognitive process
(p58). Levin and Levin (1990) suggest that when mnemonic devices are used to help acquire information,
the information is more easily applied when mnemonic
devices are employed. In addition, Wolfe (2001) explains that the mnemonic device assists the learner by
helping to link information stored in long-term memory
with new information the brain is receiving. Students
who have created their own mnemonic devices have
outperformed comparison students, as reported by
Mastropieri and Scruggs (1998), and Markowitz and
Jensen (1999) indicate that the use of mnemonic devices may increase student learning by two to three
times. Research into how teachers should use mnemonics in the classroom indicates that the important thing
to remember is to explain to the students why the
mnemonic device is being used and why it will work
(Kolencik and Hillwig 2011, 63).
ASEJ, Volume 44, Number 1, August 2015

What Is Metacognition?
Metacognition is the thinking about ones thinking;
it may be defined as ones knowledge, control and
awareness of ones thinking and learning (Thomas
2012a). It is the process of making thinking the object
of ones consideration and manipulation so that the
thinker may potentially control his or her cognition.
Cognition refers to thinking skills, processes and strategies, while metacognition refers to the metacognitive
knowledge, metacognitive control and metacognitive
awareness of these cognitive skills, processes and
strategies (Flavel 1979; Thomas 2013). Metacognitive
knowledge is knowledge about the thinking and learning
processes; this knowledge can be either declarative,
procedural or conditional. For a given cognitive skill,
process or strategy, declarative knowledge refers to
knowing that a given cognitive strategy may potentially
be used to solve a certain type of problem. Procedural
knowledge is knowledge about how to use the strategy
to solve the problem. Conditional knowledge refers to
what class of problem the strategy is applicable to.
Metacognitive awareness is the self-awareness the
thinker possesses in using a cognitive skill, process or
strategy, and metacognitive control is the control and
regulation of the learning process. Finally, as a result
of the thinker making cognition the object of consideration, the thinker may have a metacognitive experience
(Flavel 1979).

Metacognition and Instruction

A mnemonic device is a thinking skill, process or
strategy used to assist students with information retention, where the mnemonic device facilitates the translation of complicated information into a form that may
be more easily retained by the student. The mnemonic
device becomes metacognitive when the student is
able to differentiate between the declarative, procedural and conditional metacognitive knowledge necessary to help solve a physics problemthat is, about
when, why and how to apply the mnemonic device.
The student demonstrates declarative metacognitive
knowledge when he or she recognizes that the mnemonic can be used to solve a certain type of problem;
the student demonstrates procedural metacognitive
knowledge when he or she is able to understand the
mechanics of how the mnemonic is used to help solve
a problem; and the student demonstrates conditional
ASEJ, Volume 44, Number 1, August 2015

metacognitive knowledge when he or she can demonstrate the class of problem to which the mnemonic
applies. As a result of students designing their own
mnemonic device to help them remember formulas
and help them solve kinematics problems, for example,
it is envisaged that students metacognitve awareness
of their thinking will increase. Upon students reflecting
about the thinking processes they attended to in designing their mnemonic device, many students should
report a metacognitive experience resulting from having been stimulated by their teacher to think about
mnemonics in a way they had not done previously.
Since many physics students also concurrently study
mathematics, the transfer and durability of mnemonic
devices is important, and metacognition is seen as a
potential mediator of improvement (Georghiades
2000, 119) for this transfer. Georghiades asserts that
metacognition makes students more actively involved
in the learning process, makes them more responsible
for their learning and has a positive impact on students
abilities to both retain and transfer conceptions over
a longer duration. According to Georghiades, metacognition allows students to maintain a deeper understanding of the subject material because the learning
process is revisited, students are encouraged to be
reflective, students compare their prior and current
conceptions and students analyze and have an awareness of their difficulties. Although it is important for
physics teachers to provide metacognition instruction
to their students, Georghiades does caution that the
metacognitive feedback provided by the teacher to the
students should be appropriate, compatible and
accessible.

Student Physics Learning

The research into student physics learning indicates
that the mathematical representation of physics concepts was a real barrier to student understanding and
that many students had difficulty in using models and
relationships (Albe, Venturini and Lascours 2001).
Salam and Millar (2006) agree that the introduction
of formulas and other mathematical notations may
impede rather than promote the understanding of basic
physics principles. Students are often overwhelmed by
a large number of physics equations and they cannot
conceptually understand the relationships between the
variables, but they are able to algebraically manipulate
them. To mitigate these student problems, Willms,
27

Friesen and Milton (2009) suggest that effective teaching should include learning tasks that are thoughtfully
designed and that require and instill deep thinking
while immersing the student in disciplinary inquiry.
Thomas (2012b) suggests that current best practices
in science teaching should enhance students conceptual understanding of scientific concepts through
teaching approaches that promote scientific knowledge as a process of inquiry rather than with students
as passive learners. The suggestion is made that metacognition is one of these best practices and to improve
students science learning, there is a need to develop
and enhance their adaptive metacognition so that they
can learn science more effectively, efficiently, and with
increased understanding across science learning contexts (Thomas 2012b, 30). In addition, Thomas also
suggests that the science learning environment should
be more metacognitively orientated. Prosser, Walker
and Millar (1996) reported that students exhibit a
surface learning to physics, as a result of a predominantly textbook based and lecture style of teaching
(p47), since students do not make connections between ideas and representations, and instead focus on
memorization with little permanence for what has been
learned. The use of mnemonic devices for helping
students solve physics problems should therefore
provide students with an alternative to simply memorizing equations and should help provide students with
a more logical conceptual solution framework.

Epistemology
Epistemology is a theory of knowledge that explains
how we know what we know. When thought becomes
aware of itself and under the individuals control, the
thinker is put in charge of his or her knowing. When
the thinker is put in charge of his or her knowing, the
thinker is then able to decide what to believe and is
able to update and revise those beliefs as warranted
(Kuhn 1999). It is very important for students to know
what they know and to be able to justify why, because
the students skill in the conscious coordination of
theory and evidence also put them in a position to
evaluate the assertions of others (Kuhn 1999, 23),
their teachers and societal influences. According to
Kuhn, the development of students epistemological
understanding is a fundamental component of their
critical thinking because students must first recognize
the point of thinking before they engage in thinking.
28

Different Levels of Student

Epistemologies
There are a number of epistemological levels that
are typical in students. The complexity of the levels
may progress from simple realism to more advanced
constructivism, but a student may retain a given level
through time. Students who possess a realist epistemology believe that assertions are direct copies of some
given external reality and this reality is directly knowable. The absolutist understands assertions as facts,
either true or false, and they represent a reality that
can be directly knowable. The multiplist believes that
assertions are freely chosen opinions accountable only
to the holder of the opinion, and therefore reality cannot be directly knowable. The evaluative epistemology
believes that assertions are judgments that can be
evaluated by criteria evaluating argument and evidence, suggesting that reality is not directly knowable.
The objectivist epistemology contends that external
reality can be objectively known and that objective and
unconditional truth statements can be made about this
reality. The conceptualization of science in this way is,
then, a search for truths, and science is considered as
a way of discovering the laws, principles and theories
associated with reality (Lorsbach and Tobin 1992). Finally, the constructivist epistemology is a theory of
mind that recognises the primacy of humans as knowledge constructors capable of generating a multiplicity
of valid representations of reality (Kuhn 1999, 22)
where science is seen as the process that assists us in
making sense of the world.

Epistemological Understanding
Epistemological understanding is fundamental to
a students understanding and critical thinking development. Therefore, the teacher has the responsibility
to develop within his or her students a sophisticated
epistemology that promotes such critical thinking. If
the teacher promotes a strictly objective absolutism,
then knowledge is seen by students as simply accumulating from textbook-like facts and is disconnected
from the human mind. If the teacher promotes a strictly
subjective multiplism, students will conceive knowledge as subject only to the tastes of the knower where
no truth is ever knowable (Kuhn 1999). What is required
is a pedagogy in which teachers promote, especially
ASEJ, Volume 44, Number 1, August 2015

in physics and science, a form of constructivism where

students are allowed to construct their knowledge to
advance their epistemology allowing for multiple representations of reality. Students should be given the
opportunity to try to understand their conception of
reality based upon experience so that their conception
of reality may progress into a more sophisticated epistemology in which theories and laws arise out of the
students attempt to purposefully achieve this understanding (Roth and Roychoudhury 1994).

The DAFIT Kinematics Acronym

I became interested in investigating the application
of metacognition and student epistemology to the
study of mnemonic devices because I was never satisfied with the level of my students understanding with
the DAFIT kinematics acronym I had given to them.
There are many different mnemonic or memory devices
used to assist students when solving physics problems,
and the acronym is a commonly used mnemonic where
a word is formed from the initial letters of words in a
series of words. Students are able to apply the acronym
to successfully solve kinematics problems, but they
may not exhibit a deep level of conceptual understanding when doing so. Since there are five physics formulas
required to solve kinematics problems, students often
find it difficult to determine which formula to select
for a given set of parameters; the DAFIT acronym facilitates the ease of this selection process. The DAFIT
method for solving kinematics problems involves
memorizing a single kinematic formula for each of the
five letters D, A, F, I and T and memorizing the word
DAFIT. The letters represent the variables for displacement, acceleration, final velocity, initial velocity and

time, and they correspond to one of five specific physics formulas (see Table1). The way the DAFIT method
is used is that for a given kinematics problem, if the
student does not have information about a certain
variable, the student selects the corresponding formula
for that variable associated with the corresponding
letter in the acronym. If, for example, the problem
provides no information about displacement, the formula vf=vi+at is selected because it is the formula that
corresponds to the letter D, the displacement.
When the DAFIT acronym becomes metacognitive
for the student, the student has control and awareness
of the acronym cognitive strategy and is able to differentiate between the declarative, procedural and
conditional metacognitive knowledge necessary to help
solve a physics problemthat is, about when, why and
how to apply the acronym (see Figure1, page 30).

Fostering Student
Metacognition and Personal
Epistemology in the Physics
Classroom
To foster student metacognition and epistemology
in the physics classroom, a lesson may include the following series of steps.

Fostering Student Epistemology

1. To initiate a discussion about epistemology the
teacher may begin by asking students the question,
How do you know what you know about physics?
Some students may report that they know physics
based upon what they have learned from what their

Table 1. The DAFIT Acronym for Kinematics Formulas

Acronym Letter

Variable

Variable Name [units]

Formula

displacement [m]

= vi+at
vfv=v
f i+at

vf

d t+1/2at
= vit+at2 2
d=v
i

vi

acceleration [ m2 ]
s
m
final velocity [ s ]
m
initial velocity [ s ]

time [s]

vf2 = vi2+2ad

ASEJ, Volume 44, Number 1, August 2015

d = (vi+v
+vf)t
)t
d=1/2(v
i
f

d t-1/2at
= vft-at2 2
d=v
f

29

to help solve a physics problemthat is, about when, why and how to apply the acronym
(see Figure 1).
Figure 1: The Metacognitive Application of the DAFIT Cognitive Strategy
METACOGNITION
Knowledge

COGNITION
COGNITION
DAFIT
acronym
acronym

METACOGNITION

Control

Awareness

Declarative
Awareness Self-monitoring
Knowledge
Control The awareness
The
DAFIT
acronym
can
be
used
to
that
one
can
Declarative
SelfThe awareness
Regulation of
The
DAFIT
acronym
monitoring
that
one
can
solve kinematics problems
control ones
the acronym
can be used to solve
control ones
Regulation
of
thinking
when
Procedural
kinematics
problems
thinking when
the acronym Is the DAFIT
using
the
DAFIT
What are the proceduresusing
necessary
Procedural
acronym
the DAFIT
Is the DAFIT
acronymacronym
What
arethe
the DAFIT acronym?
to use
acronym
working?
procedures necessary
working?
Conditional
to use the DAFIT
When and why the DAFIT acronym
acronym?
may be appropriate to use
Conditional

When and why the

DAFIT acronym may
Figure 1: The metacognitive application
of the DAFIT
be appropriate
to use cognitive strategy

Fostering
Student
and Personal
Epistemology intheir
the thinking
Physics Classroom
teacher
has toldMetacognition
them or from memorizing
textbook
when using it. The teacher will infacts, an objectivist epistemology. Other students
struct students on the use of the acronym, indicatTo foster
student that
metacognition
epistemology
in the physics
may explain
they knowand
physics
from experiingclassroom,
that it can abelesson
used may
to organize information in
ments or from experiencing how nature works
physics just as has already been done in their
include
the following
series
of steps. epistemology.
through
their senses,
a constructivist
mathematics classes.
When I have asked this question, however, many
3. The teacher will now describe two acronyms from
Fostering
Student
students
claimEpistemology
that they know physics from what
mathematics with which students are already familtheir teacher tells them and through the memorizaiar, and will provide a description of how acronyms
tion of textbook facts.
work in these contexts. The FOIL (first, outer, inner,
2. The teacher could then explain that there are many
last) acronym for multiplying out brackets will be
different ways of knowing but that using experianalyzed first, and then the trigonometric acronym
ments and the senses is a more sophisticated way
SOH, CAH, TOA, for remembering the formulas for
of knowing physics. In promoting a constructivist
right-angle triangles. The teacher will explain that
epistemology, then, it is important that students
the five formulas involved in solving kinematics
are not given mnemonic devices to memorize, but
problems are difficult to remember and that, just
rather that they create them for themselves.
as in mathematics, an acronym may be used to help
remember the five kinematics formulas. In addition,
the teacher will suggest to students that a good
Fostering Student
acronym for kinematics is one that will also help
Metacognition
them decide which of the five formulas to pick when
solving problems. Emphasis will be made that the
1. To initiate a discussion about metacognition the
kinematics acronym should operate similarly to the
teacher may begin by asking students the following
way the SOH, CAH, TOA acronym operates in mathquestions. Have you ever thought about how you
ematics because it assists in both remembering the
think? What are some of the thinking strategies
formulas and selecting the correct formula.
you use in school to help you think?
4. The teacher will now challenge students to create
2. The teacher could then describe the acronym as
their own DAFIT acronym. Students will be made
one way to organize thinking, explaining that there
aware that the acronym is simply a tool to help
are many different thinking strategies. The metatheir thinking and that additional thinking procognition instruction will consist of the teacher
cesses are involved when they determine when,
describing how to use the acronym as a cognitive
why and how to apply the acronym to solve physics
strategy and will seek to develop students knowlproblems.
edge, control and awareness about how to organize
30

ASEJ, Volume 44, Number 1, August 2015

5. Finally, once the students have solved some kinematics problems with their own acronyms, the
teacher will reveal the DAFIT method; similarities
and differences can then be discussed.

Kuhn, D. 1999. A Developmental Model of Critical Thinking.

Educational Researcher 28, no2: 1646.

Conclusion

Lorsbach, AW, and KTobin. 1992. Constructivism as a Referent

for Science Teaching. In Research Matters to the Science
Teacher, ed FLorenz, KCochran, JKrajcik and PSimpson.
NARST Monograph, Number Five. Manhattan, Kan: National
Association for Research in Science Teaching.

This paper suggests that mnemonic devices such

as acronyms may be used as a pedagogical opportunity
to teach students about metacognition and their personal epistemology. As a result of students developing
mnemonic devices, they will develop their metacognitive skills and personal epistemological sophistication,
and students will be given the requisite metacognitive
tools to facilitate their deeper conceptual understanding when solving problems. When students reflect on
the thinking processes they attended to in designing
acronyms, many should report a metacognitive experience resulting from having been stimulated by their
teacher to think about acronyms in a way they had not
done previously. By challenging students to think about
how they know what they know about physics, student
critical thinking may be promoted as students attend
to a more sophisticated constructivist epistemology
rather than the objectivist epistemology many students
currently exhibit.

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