Introduction

This paper will argue that additional, generic dimensions in curriculums that conserve disciplinary detail are unlikely to drive pedagogical reform. From the long perspective of human cultural evolution (Henrich, 2017), conservative curriculums advantage successive generations by sparing them the ‘cognitive labour’ of rediscovering knowledge ‘ex-nihilo’ (Talbot, 2023, p. 637). As societies evolve, curriculums adapt by capturing and redefining their epistemic activity (Goodson, 2014; Green, 2017; Yates & Grumet, 2011; Young, 2014). Shifts in curriculum emphasis from traditional, passive, content-based ‘knowledge’ to constructivist, outcomes-based ‘procedures’ (Hoadley, 2011, pp. 143–144; OECD, 2020, p. 9) prepared millennials for ‘life-long learning’. The political and environmental sustainability crisis of the Anthropocene is now provoking the introduction of values that will support ‘future learning’. If students are expected to engage with ‘scientific, digital and humanistic literacies that develop the ability to distinguish falsehoods from truth’ (UNESCO, 2021, p. 4) and develop ‘the ability, will and beliefs (e.g. growth mindset) to positively influence their own lives and the world around them’ (OECD, 2020, p. 6), they must acquire metacognitive efficacy.

Metacognition is an umbrella term used to describe a range of internal cognitive processes for approaching complex problems and managing their outcomes. These strategic, second-order ‘cognitive enterprises’ (Flavell, 1979, p. 906) rely on the interaction of cognitive and regulatory dimensions of thinking (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Heer, 2012; Krathwohl, 2002; Mahdavi, 2014; Mevarech & Kramarski, 2014, p. 38; Schraw, 1998). The affective and cognitive skills attributed to metacognition comprise a ‘person’s own internal mental representations of … reality which can include what one knows about that internal representation, how it works, and how one feels about it. (Hacker, 1998, p. 3 cited in Mahdavi, 2014, p. 532). The term has been contested because it did not contribute additional understanding to comprehension skills that were described at the beginning of the twentieth century, and confused knowledge about cognition with regulation, particularly when applied to learning (Brown, 1987, pp. 66–68; Jacobs & Paris, 1987). Metacognition is also difficult to measure, because students’ outcomes vary according to the tool applied (Gascoine et al., 2016). In experimental contexts, efforts to develop students’ multidimensional thinking skills are rarely immediate, but the benefits become strongly evident months or even years later (Adey & Shayer, 1993; Oliver & Venville, 2017; Oliver et al., 2012; Trickey & Topping, 2004).

The concept of metacognition is therefore difficult to encapsulate in simple terms. Poor learners, however, ‘use inadequate metacognitive processes’ (Zohar, 2004, p. 160), and of the ‘range and combinations of all strategies that ineffective learners lack, it is the metacognitive … strategies which seem to be the strategy types most lacking in the arsenal of less successful learners.” (Macaro, 2001, p. 269 cited in Mahdavi, 2014, p. 529).

These skills are however widely regarded as teachable. ‘Metacognition’ is therefore emerging as a key strategy for enhancing learning and engagement (Beach et al., 2020; Education Endowment Foundation, 2018; Radovan, 2019; Smith‑Ferguson, 2020; Tay et al., 2022). Interest in fostering its development can be traced through calls to teach for transfer and connectivity (Ackerman & Perkins, 1989), introduce twenty-first century skills (Ananiadoui & Claro, 2009; Lai & Viering, 2012; Wootten, 2019), develop student agency (Mager & Nowak, 2012), and invite students to solve tasks that are Complex, Unfamiliar and Non-routine (CUN) (Mevarech & Kramarski, 2014). These pedagogies prioritise the intrinsic benefits of education over measurable disciplinary outcomes, but curriculums are also accountable to external contexts, including assessment.

Curriculums ideate active learning and metacognitive endeavour as skills and dispositions. Examples include Critical and Creative Thinking in the Australian Curriculum Version 9’s (ACv9) General capabilities, Critical-thinking and Creative-thinking in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme’s (MYP) Approaches to Learning skills framework (IBO, 2014b, pp. 105–114) and Principle 4: Learning to learn and Key competencies Thinking and Managing self (TKI, n.d.-a) in the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC).

This paper presents the analysis of a limited number of curriculums, selected for their international repute and range of presentations, to clarify how they balance disciplinary detail with advice for experiential, inquiry learning.

Theoretical background

Curriculums bridge the political context of educational policy and societal expectations for teachers (McKnight, 2021; Pinar, 2008), and the relationship between knowledge and the learner’s experience. Discourse governing curriculum design has long been entangled with sociology, concerned with how curriculums deliver social cohesion, their accessibility and how their content prepares students for the uncertain future. A major design tension is located between ‘neo-conservative traditionalism’, which views knowledge as a stable corpus, and ‘technical-instrumentalism’ which is concerned with generic, adaptable skills (Young, 2008, pp. 18–34). Whereas neo-conservatism is represented by the cognitive information of curriculums, technical-instrumentalism is concerned with its complex applications.

Neo-conservativism has its philosophical roots in Durkheim’s views about the value of ‘collective knowledge’ (religious or scientific) for maintaining social cohesion (Young, 2008, pp. 35–64). Disciplinary information published in curriculums is neither politically nor socially neutral because it carries the authority of a state or system. In the USA, England and New Zealand curriculum reform has been linked to politically conservative movements and ‘managerial inspired’ regulation (Apple, 2004, p. 43) that seeks to develop students’ future economic value. Multiple authors have identified how ‘traditional’ perspectives in curriculums fail marginalised groups (Apple, 2004; Jorgensen, 2011; Rose et al., 2020; Bourdieu, cited in Yates et al., 2016, p. 28).

Technical-instrumentalism is closer to Vygotsky’s views about the origin of learning as a pragmatic tool for survival, and is ‘explicitly developmental’ (Young, 2008, pp. 35–64). By focussing on student engagement (Young, 2010), technical-instrumentalism is evident in curriculums as contexts intended to make theoretical information more relatable for students by anchoring declarative knowledge in concrete, ‘everyday’ experience, in vocational subjects and in interdisciplinary approaches. However, technical-instrumentalist approaches blur the distinction between knowledge and teachers’ professional pedagogical roles. This can threaten students’ identities as learners and risk their understanding of epistemological disciplinary coherence (Wheelahan, 2012; Young, 2010).

A twentieth century development in universities introduced a related form of curriculum classification. Mode 1 represented inward-facing, hierarchical, disciplinary ‘knowledge for its own sake’ (Hessels & Van Lente, 2008; Yates et al., 2016): the neo-conservative tradition. Mode 2 evolved as a result of partnerships with industry to solve technical problems. Its approaches were interdisciplinary, outward-facing, innovative, and reflexive (Becher & Trowler, 2001, p. 7): ‘technical-instrumentalism’ in action. In this paper, junior secondary school curriculums which present their knowledge using insular disciplinary formats will be designated Mode 1, and those that focus on generic skills and interdisciplinary concepts, Mode 2.

Research questions

The following research questions guided this study:

  1. (1)

    What perspectives of metacognition are emphasised in curriculums? (RQ1)

  2. (2)

    How does a curriculum’s modality interact with its expectations for metacognition? (RQ2)

  3. (3)

    What are the implications for practice? (RQ3)

Methodology

The methodology focussed on identifying the intersections between curriculum modality and ten metacognitive subthemes in their documentation.

Curriculum modality

The period between early to mid-adolescence is critical for students’ metacognitive development (Weinstein & Mayer, 1986). A modal continuum of five curriculums for students aged 11–16 years (Fig. 1) provided the context for this analysis.

Fig. 1
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Relative location of curriculum formats

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Cambridge Assessment International Education

Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) historically provided the externally validated benchmark assessments used in the UK. The version for the international school market, the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) was developed in 1988 (Hayden, 2013). IGCSE subjects are now used in over 10 000 schools in 160 countries, including those with mandated national curriculums like Australia and New Zealand (CAIE, n.d.-b), making it ‘the most widely taken qualification in the world’ (Monteath, 2015, p. 15).

CAIE courses follow a linear progression sequence (the ‘Cambridge Pathway’). Key Stage 3 (KS3) is designed for students aged 11 + and supported by curriculum frameworks for 10 subjects. Key Stage 4 (KS4) is for students aged 14 + and supported with Syllabus overviews for two years of course work in more than 70 subjects (CAIE, n.d.-a), detailed schedules and administrative advice. Each school will develop its curriculum by using a selection of these materials.

CAIE courses are located in Mode 1 (Fig. 1) because they explicitly detail the knowledge required for externally-validated IGCSE assessment (CAIE, 2022a). The Covid-19 pandemic forced changes to the traditional examination format (CAIE, 2022b), so some subjects now require authentic project work. Interdisciplinary learning and twenty-first century skills are represented through an optional course, Global Perspectives, in which, in addition to an exam, students complete a team project and an individual response with personal, national and international viewpoints, covering three selections from regularly updated, wide-ranging topic lists (Roberts, 2015, p. 92).

Australian Curriculum

The Australian Curriculum (AC) was developed with extensive community and stakeholder consultation. Its first subjects were released online in October 2010 (ACARA, 2013), and the revised version (ACv9) in May 2022. It presents a ‘foundation’ of ‘essential content’ broadly classified within eight ‘learning areas’ (ACARA, n.d.-b), that are augmented, as relevant, with two additional ‘dimensions’ representing twenty-first century skills and contexts, the General capabilities and the Cross-curriculum priorities. The revised curriculum is claimed to be ‘more manageable for teachers and clearly identifies the essential content our children should learn’ (ACARA, n.d.-a). It has replaced the original statements of inquiry with specific disciplinary detail that is consistently introduced with a Bloom’s taxonomy verb. Its elaborations, which had previously suggested optional content for inclusion in inquiry, now describe optional pedagogical approaches.

The ACv9 is located in Mode 1 (Fig. 1) because its focus is largely disciplinary (Reid, 2020, p. 231), although it advocates inquiry pedagogies and school-based assessment. The ACv9 is not assessed directly, but National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) benchmarking tests track students individually at two-year intervals between Years 3 and 9 (Rose et al., 2020).

IB Middle Years Programme

The MYP was introduced in 1994 to align with the IB’s Diploma Programme, an internationally recognised senior curriculum developed to prepare children who ‘lived with travelling families’ for general university entry (IBO, 2010). From the beginning, the MYP provided an adaptable framework that emphasised metacognition:

‘What is of paramount importance in the pre-university stage is not what is learned but learning how to learn … What matters is not the absorption and regurgitation either of fact or pre-digested interpretations of facts, but the development of powers of the mind or ways of thinking which can be applied to new situations and new presentations of facts as they arise.’ (Peterson (1972) cited in IBO, 2010, p. 2)

The MYP is a ‘crossbreed’ curriculum (Robertson, 2011, p. 143) of teacher-designed disciplinary and interdisciplinary units, and a student-led culminating performance task, the Personal Project. In 2014, a major curriculum reform (the Next Chapter) clarified connectivity between its eight disciplines with a conceptual framework, and standardised internal assessment with mandatory rubrics, staged for students in MYP 1, 3 and 5 (11 to 16 years). Twenty-first century skills are represented by a group of ten Approaches to Learning. Six Global Contexts articulate the framework with the IB Primary Years Programme’s (PYP) Transdisciplinary Themes (IBO, 2014b, p. 19). With the exception of the Personal Project, MYP schools have the option to generate school-based certification using a process of internal moderation. Worldwide, over 1800 schools offer the Middle Years Programme (MYP) in 108 countries, including Australia.

From 2016, the MYP included an optional e-assessment pathway to externally validated disciplinary certification (Harrison & Miller, 2017). In four disciplines, e-assessment consists of a two-hour, interactive on-line task (IBO, 2019, n.d.). This development required the addition of ‘topic lists’ to their disciplinary guides. E-assessment is now generating washback effects (IBO, 2020a) and there are concerns it may devalue the MYP’s advocated collaborative, experiential pedagogies (Hughes, 2014). Since the software has been published, some schools are developing their own, formative versions of these tasks (IBO, 2020c).

Although the location of the MYP is shifting, the framework retains the flexibility to be enacted in either mode (Fig. 1).

Common Core State Standards

Like the AC, the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CC) were envisioned to provide national consistency in the USA (Lavenia et al., 2015). Like the MYP and PYP, the CC were backwards designed from agreed college- and career-readiness standards (CCSS, n.d.-a). Facilitated by access to federal grants (Geer, 2018), the CC were adopted by nearly every state within a year of their release in June 2010 (Lavenia et al., 2015), although this number has since declinedFootnote 1 (McCardle, 2014; World Population Review, n.d.). Currently the CC are implemented in ‘41 states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools’ (CCSS, n.d.-a).

The CC are a conceptual framework of core content and specific skills (CCSS, n.d.-d) broadly scoped for literacy (CCSS, n.d.-b) and numeracy (CCSS, n.d.-c) across disciplines. ‘Key shifts’ in literacy and numeracy (CCSS, n.d.-f, n.d.-g) emphasise twenty-first century skills which require collaborative pedagogies (Hakuta & Santos, 2012, p. iii). Depth of knowledge and thinking is expected to develop by using teaching strategies matched to Bloom’s taxonomy (Hess, 2013; Webb, 2002).

Philosophically, the CC align with a Mode 2 (Fig. 1) format. Because their implementation is the responsibility of each state (CCSS, n.d.-e, Myths About Implementation), it is possible teachers in some states will not interact with the framework directly. In states that implement the CC, students’ academic advancement in Years 4, 8 and 12 is tracked using National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests (Institute of Education Sciences, n.d.).

New Zealand Curriculum

The NZC was developed in 1992, revised in 2000–2002, and 2017 (TKI, n.d.-a) and was being ‘refreshed’ during this study to address student engagement and curriculum cohesion (Averill, 2021; Chamberlain et al., 2021). Uniquely for a national curriculum, the NZC is ‘bicultural’; its two versions are not translations but offer different educational approaches for Māori- and Pakeha-medium schools. Although only 2.4% of New Zealand’s students use the Māori curriculum, Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, for more than 50% of their schooling, Pakeha-medium schools are encouraged to incorporate the Māori curriculum as appropriate for their communities, and approximately 20% do so (ACARA, 2019, p. 44).

The NZC is a ‘learning system’ based on eight principles that include cultural diversity (Principle 6) and inclusion (Principle 8). It emphasises values, principles and key capabilities to deliver ‘knowledge and skills’ in its eight learning areas. With an emphasis on meaningful, authentic practice, different strands may be prioritised at different times with different year cohorts (TKI, n.d.-b, n.d.-c). The on-line NZC includes extensive resources, readings, examples and blogs to support its implementation. To improve focus on student-centred learning, and greater bi-cultural equity, a developmentally phased ‘learning progression’ is proposed to replace the current sequence of eight learning outcomes across years 1–13 (McDowall & Hipkins, 2018, pp. 6–7).

The NZC is a famous example of a Mode 2 format. The curriculum’s interwoven approach advocates teacher agency and empowers ‘schools as designers of local curriculum.’ (Chamberlain et al., 2021, p. 21). No part of the NZC is optional, but schools and their teachers, as ‘master weavers’ of knowledge integration (Chamberlain et al., 2021, p. 26), are warranted the professional responsibility to tailor the curriculum to their students’ interests and needs.

Semantic themes

A qualitative analysis of curriculums using a directed approach (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) requires a set of explicit, predefined themes for semantic coding (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 84). Curriculums are documents which package what schools should teach, but the metacognitive strategies involved in learning occur in students’ minds, and therefore must rely on inference (Aitken & Sinnema, 2008, p. 50; Alton-Lee, 2003, p. 8; Henningsen & Stein, 1997 cited in Anthony & Walshaw, 2007, p. 189). Without detailed pedagogical contexts (which are beyond the scope of this paper) it is not possible to clarify whether the students interacting with curriculum content are drawing on second-order levels of thinking that can confidently be ascribed to metacognition. Instead, this methodological approach is pragmatic: allocating content to metacognitive themes that have been described in other frameworks or policies.

Epistemic metacognition

Disciplinary epistemology refers to how knowledge is developed within a discipline. Curriculums typically introduce disciplinary epistemologies in their general descriptions of subjects, for example, ‘Understand this learning area’ sections in the ACv9 and ‘Nature of … [the discipline]’ sections prefacing MYP disciplinary guides; it is intrinsic.

One perspective of ‘epistemic metacognition’ (Barzilai & Zohar, 2014, 2016, p. 3; Zohar & Hipkins, 2018) considers students as ‘experts under development’ (Thomas, 2023, p. 254) whose disciplinary proficiency develops by interacting with ‘knowledge, skills, and experiences regarding the nature of knowledge and of knowing strategies and processes’ (Barzilai & Zohar, 2014, p. 15, emphasis added), an example being ‘scientific knowledge building through inquiry’ (Sandoval, 2005 cited in Barzilai & Zohar, 2012, p. 40). Support for the concept that students’ epistemic knowledge is a type of metacognition is evident in the recent finding that middle school students’ metacognitive awareness and their understanding of the nature of science were closely correlated (Goren & Kaya, 2023). At the same time, ‘epistemic metacognition’ is increasingly identified as a gap in classroom practice (Chamberlain et al., 2021, p. 23; Hipkins, 2015, p. 7; OECD, 2019).

The three coding subthemes used for this analysis (Table 1) were sourced from ‘knowing how to think and act like a practitioner’ (OECD, 2019, p. 9). These elements align with Barzilai and Zohar’s (2014) definition of epistemic metacognition.

Table 1 Epistemic metacognition subthemes
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General metacognition

Metacognition, awareness of information that affects performance (Bransford, 2000; Flavell, 1979) includes perspectives from linguistics, education, and psychology (Gascoine et al., 2016), each with its own taxonomies. Although multiple researchers are represented in the discourse below, for brevity during coding purposes, in Table 2 these four subthemes will be ascribed to ‘Flavell’, who coined the term ‘metacognition’.

Table 2 General metacognitive subthemes
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Metacognition as a dimension of knowledge

Cognitive demands of education frequently apply Bloom’s taxonomy (Hess, 2013; Krathwohl, 2002) to categorize information into three groups, followed by a self-regulatory element (Flavell, 1979; Mevarech & Kramarski, 2014; Moshman, 2018; Pintrich, 2002; Schraw, 1998).

  • Declarative knowledge refers to established knowledge, including self-knowledge (Gascoine et al., 2016; Moore & Muller, 1999; Moshman, 2018). It refers to stable, constant, familiar information that can be strategically incorporated within higher order thinking (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Heer, 2012; Zohar, 2004), which is why in this analysis, it included simple statements of fact. This category of knowledge relies on memory, as well as awareness of the control of memory (Schraw, 1998).

  • Procedural knowledge (metacognitive skilfulness) refers to how tasks are done, for example, through rehearsal or note taking. For experienced learners, who are likely to be familiar with a greater repertoire of automated strategies and heuristics, it includes how to chunk and organise new information (Schraw, 1998: 114). In this analysis, examples involving the transfer of skills to novel contexts were included in this category.

  • Conditional knowledge refers to why and when they are done (Moshman, 2018), enabling learners to allocate resources efficiently and selectively to respond to changing circumstances, for example, knowing when and how much they should rehearse (Schraw, 1998). This analysis included writing genres that were structured for different purposes or conditions in this category.

  • Metacognitive regulation refers to processing strategies that can include planning, monitoring, control, and critically, self-evaluation and reflection (Beach et al., 2020; Mevarech & Kramarski, 2014; Schraw, 1998; Tarricone, 2011; White & Frederiksen, 1998). Metacognitive processing skills are teachable and have been demonstrated to be highly effective for improving learning outcomes, including in very young students (Mevarech & Kramarski, 2014; Schraw, 1998).

Metacognition from the perspective of knowing

Discourses from psychology are concerned with ‘the knower’. This taxonomy considers cognitive developmental theory (Kuhn & Dean, 2004) derived from Piaget’s developmental stages and Vygotsky’s ‘zone of proximal development’. These codes aim to define the internal dialogue of students calibrating their cognitive monitoring and control as they engage with tasks (Dimmitt & McCormick, 2012; Nelson & Narrens, 1990), and may therefore provide a more accurate representation of ‘metacognition’ in curriculums. For brevity during coding purposes, these categories of psychological shifts in understanding have been ascribed to ‘Kuhn’ who defined them in 1999.

  • Metacognitive knowing may incorporate emotional regulation, for example, feelings of familiarity, difficulty, confidence or satisfaction associated with task engagement (Efklides, 2002), and judgements about ease of learning, progress and task completion (Nelson & Narrens, 1990). Because metacognitive knowing is involved in considering relationships between declarative knowledge (Kuhn, 1999), it was anticipated to be prominent in interdisciplinary learning.

  • Epistemological knowing, knowing how we know, has been linked with hypothesising (Kuhn, 1999; Kuhn, 2000), and Piaget’s stage of formal operations (Kuhn, 1999). Although there is agreement that the origins of metacognition lie in early childhood (Gascoine et al., 2016; Kuhn, 2000; Mevarech & Kramarski, 2014; Veenman et al., 2006) epistemological knowing is usually associated with developmentally older children. Pedagogically, epistemological knowing is supported by using inquiry approaches in education (Kuhn & Dean, 2004).

  • Metastrategic knowledge (MSK) (Kuhn, 2001) combines high order procedural and conditional processing (Kuhn, 1999; Zohar & Peled, 2008). It includes the ability to classify, establish and analyse causal relationships, develop arguments and hypotheses, and identify hidden assumptions (Zohar, 2006; Zohar & Peled, 2008).

The seven subthemes listed in Table 2 have multiple, overlapping interpretations (Gascoine et al., 2016; Lai & Viering, 2012, p. 27), and occasional linkages to the three subthemes in Table 1. Epistemological knowing, defined as ‘how we know’ (Kuhn, 1999) resembles epistemic metacognition (Barzilai & Zohar, 2014; Zohar, 2004). Kuhn’s term, MSK, which requires that students to apply a strategy consistently as evidence for them recognising why it works, aligns with Zohar’s definition of declarative knowledge (Zohar, 2004, pp. 20–21). To code these distinctions consistently, in this study epistemological knowing was used to refer to students’ subjective experiences relating to curriculum intent, and epistemic metacognition to general descriptions about the nature of a discipline’s knowledge. If the language of the curriculum was ambiguous, the phrase was assigned to both semantic subthemes.

The cognitive domains of curriculums were identified by their use of ‘thinking words’ (e.g., Hess, 2013; IBO, 2014b, pp. Appendix 3, 118–134; Tishman et al., 1995, pp. 11–12). The revised Bloom’s taxonomy includes a separate, metacognitive dimension (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Krathwohl, 2002; Wilson, 2016), but the categories remain ‘general’ (Heer, 2012). Individual verbs are not exclusive to one category. Webb’s levels, for example, do not represent a progression, sequence or developmental stage (ACARA, 2019, p. 13). Each specific verb needed to be considered within its broader curriculum context. Ambiguous phrases in curriculums were assigned to all relevant subthemes.

Method

Data set description

The data set, detailed in the Supplementary InformationFootnote 2 of this paper, was limited to the materials intended for use by English, Humanities, Mathematics or Science teachers of students aged 11–16 years, generally contemporaneous with the 2022 Northern hemisphere academic year. Supplementary material for curriculums usually comprised information teachers were likely to refer to for additional guidance.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Duplicated content in curriculums was excluded from the analysis. For example, in the ACv9, subject scope and sequences for Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) learning areas repeat information in the HASS subject content and elaborations, and Schemes of work in CAIE courses duplicate course content, although they incorporate pedagogical advice.

Coding process

Curriculums were semantically coded using a qualitative analysis platform, NVivo 2.0. Sections from each data item were assigned subtheme codes listed in Tables 1 and 2. Code sizes initially varied, according to their presentation. For example, if a selection crossed a page break in a PDF document, this arbitrarily increased the number of codes assigned to a subtheme; if a section within a code was transferred to a different subcategory, the related information fractured into two codes.

Each code was subsequently annotatedFootnote 3 to identify the phrase or sentence used to justify its thematic allocation. Less relevant information was deleted. This further fragmented the original coding but resulted in more consistent code sizes. Duplicate codes (i.e., code fragments with identical wording collected via alternative presentations of a curriculum) in the same subtheme were deleted.

Codes which were consistently assigned to more than one subtheme included the ACv9 learning area ‘Content descriptions’, to ‘Declarative knowledge’ and suggested ‘Content elaborations’ to ‘Procedural knowledge’. Similarly, codes from the CC and MYP which included descriptions of a range of complex tasks were assigned to ‘Conditional knowledge’ and MSK, if at least one of the listed example tasks was a relevant example.

This method was anticipated to reveal both the scope of epistemic metacognition and general metacognitive subthemes present in curriculums and to provide quasi-quantitative information about their emphases, including distinctions between their holistic representation and between the four disciplines.

Coding aggregations

The NVivo matrix analysis function enabled codes to be aggregated for comparison across a range of PDF documents and websites.Footnote 4 Disciplinary aggregations comprised of CAIE KS3 frameworks, KS4 handbooks and syllabi, ACv9 ‘about the Learning Area’, ‘understand the Learning Area’ and ‘content’, MYP disciplinary guides and ‘further guidance’ documents, NZC levels 4 and 5 (TKI, n.d.-a) and pedagogical guides for the relevant subjects (Aitken & Sinnema, 2008; Anthony & Walshaw, 2007; Education Review Office, 2021; Hipkins, 2012). Documents that covered multiple disciplines were aggregated with the most relevant: CC English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and technical Subjects (CCSS, n.d.-b) was aggregated with English, CC Mathematics (CCSS, n.d.-c), and Further guidance for MYP mathematics and sciences (IBO, 2014a) with mathematics. There was no CAIE KS3 framework for humanities.

‘Supplementary documents’ referred to all non-disciplinary components of the data set, although the intent of these resources was not necessarily similar.

Results

Epistemic metacognition: subtheme representation

If curriculums alone inform classroom practice, Fig. 2 provides the visual evidence for the claim teachers under-emphasise epistemic metacognition (Hipkins, 2015). The total number of references is represented by the length of the bar, and the numbers refer to the frequency each subtheme was coded. Apart from the ACv9, most curriculums accrued fewer than ten references per discipline to each epistemic metacogition subtheme. If a curriculum included science, then all three subthemes were represented. Compared to other subjects, science also contributed relatively larger numbers of codes.

Fig. 2
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Epistemic metacognition themes based on coding prevalence

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‘Ethical practice’ usually referred to risk management and animal welfare requirements in science, or risk management and site conservation in authentic learning contexts, for example, fieldwork in HASS or ‘real world’ applications in Mathematics. In the ACv9, ‘forms and uses’ was usually positioned in the optional ‘Curriculum elaborations’, alongside disciplinary content. Whether teachers reflect on ‘Nature of …’ codes for lesson planning is debatable, as this information is typically found in the preamble to curriculum content.

Subtheme code totals of Supplementary documents were variable, because these items were not consistent in their intent. Epistemic metacognition was not represented the ACv9’s general capabilities, Thinking and Creative Thinking, and Personal and Social Capability because it is associated with disciplinary practice, and these documents describe generic skills. Epistemic metacognition was barely evident in the CAIE’s Lower secondary Brochure and Upper secondary Prospectus because these are public-facing overviews. The CC’s supplementary data, Appendix A: Research Supporting Key Elements of the Standards / Glossary of Key Terms provided a range of contexts (‘forms and uses’) and a description of how language learning develops (‘nature of’).

The curriculums for which the supplementary documents provided relatively large code totals for epistemic metacognition advocated staff collaborative planning time (IBO, 2018, 2020b, 2021a) or ‘teacher learning communities’ (Aitken & Sinnema, 2008; Anthony & Walshaw, 2007; Hipkins, 2012). Supplementary data items for the MYP comprised of its pedagogical guide (IBO, 2014b), and its guides for planning and moderating interdisciplinary units (IBO, 2021a), and student-driven projects (IBO, 2018). The NZC’s supplementary data included disciplinary overviews, definitions of the Key competencies, advice on inquiry teaching strategies and understanding achievement standards (Ministry of Education, 2015).

To summarise, epistemic metacognition was well represented in three curriculums. The ACv9 expressed it in its disciplinary content, consistent with its Mode 1 format, and the MYP and NZC in supplementary documents designed to support the implementation of their Mode 2 formats.

This visualisation uses a matched scale and a common key to compare code numbers in five curriculums.

General metacognition: subtheme representation

Table 3 shows aggregated code totals for the metacognitive subthemes by curriculum, with the percentage allocations within each discipline. Flavell’s (1979) cognitive categories were the major concern of most curriculums. In decreasing order by percentage, most disciplinesFootnote 5 focussed on Procedural knowledge, Declarative knowledge, Conditional knowledge (usually, specific disciplinary applications) and Metacognitive regulation (usually, references to effective group work or study skills). This pattern was consistent with results for science and mathematics curriculums in four post-communist countries, investigated using a similar method (Kácovský et al., 2022, p. 394).

Table 3 Code totals for general metacognition subthemes [(% of each subtheme in the discipline; largest percentage shown in bold)]
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Curriculums were less consistent in their focus on the learner, signalled by coding overlaps between Kuhn’s (1999) psychological and Flavell’s (1979) cognitive dimensions. In the MYP’s supplementary documents, Metacognitive knowing (Kuhn) and Metacognitive regulation (Flavell) were connected where student reflection was advocated for understanding of relationships between declarative knowledge and Approaches to Learning. In the CC, learning outcomes that exemplified Epistemological knowing (Kuhn) included, ‘the ability to justify, in a way appropriate to the student’s mathematical maturity, why a particular mathematical statement is true or where a mathematical rule comes from’ (CCSS, n.d.-c, p. 4). The NZC’s inquiry approaches (Hipkins, 2015, 2019) and the expectation that students conduct authentic field research in CAIE Global Connections Team projects’ (HASS), encapsulated Kuhn’s third category, MSK. Although the MYP and the NZC allocated the highest pecentages of codes to ‘the learner’, all five curriculums referenced at least one of Kuhn’s metacognitive subthemes.

Curriculum tightness

Because every code was an instance of a match to a subtheme, the aggregated code totals provided quasi-quantitave insight into curriculum tightness (granularity) with the qualification that they are overestimations because every curriculum included examples of codes assigned to more than one subtheme. Large numbers of codes suggested information was detailed and were anticipated to be strongly associated with prescriptive curriculums.Footnote 6 Three of the disciplinary code totals in Table 3 were derived from more than one subject, and were therefore adjustedFootnote 7 by dividing the code totals by the number of subjects represented.

Figure 3 presents the adjusted subtheme code totals of the five curriculums. CAIE, the CC, and the ACv9 had approximately three times the number of codes compared to the NZC and MYP. There was no relationship between relative tightness of a curriculum and its modality (Fig. 1). However, all the curriculums with large numbers of codes shared a common feature: they were linked to a form of external assessment.

Fig. 3
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Adjusted subtheme code totals of the five curriculums

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Applying the same adjustment processFootnote 8 to disciplinary code totals revealed that Mathematics had approximately twice the number of codes compared to English, HASS and Science. As in Kácovský et al’s (2022) study, this pattern was found to vary according to the curriculum.

Discussion and conclusions

(RQ1.) Investigating curriculums using 10 metacognitive subthemes identified trends that concurred with other studies as well as revealing unique perspectives.

Epistemic metacognition (Fig. 2) provides disciplinary knowledge with purpose, because it positions students in the role of 'future experts’. Its prominance can be enhanced by contextualising cognitive curriculum information using these metacognitive subthemes. English teachers who explicitly emphasized forms and uses of knowledge were less likely to evoke metacognition by using superficial strategies such as worksheets (Bannister-Tyrrell & Clary, 2017). Similarly, because science textbooks rarely address ‘the self-system, which includes students examining their motivation, emotions, self-confidence’ teachers who use these resources as de facto curriculums are likely to overlook these ethical dimensions of practice (Johnson & Boon, 2023, p. 295). Epistemic metacognition was a consistent feature of the ACv9’s optional elaborations.

In common with Kácovský et al. and’s (2022. p. 398) analysis of cognitive and metacognitive knowledge in mathematics and science curriculums, metacognitive regulation was ‘underepresented’ in all five curriculums of this study (Table 3). Although all the curriculums included explicit reference to at least one of Kuhn’s second-order levels of thinking, and therefore clarified how learners were expected to engage with cognitive content, this emphasis was strongest for the NZC and and MYP.

(RQ2.) Modality had a smaller impact on the distribution of cognitive and metacognitive dimensions of curriculums than forms of external assessment.

Positioning teacher agency as part of curriculum implementation can foster pedagogies that support metacognition. The MYP mandates collaborative planning for designing interdisciplinary units and for internal moderation of assessment. The NZC’s suite of pedagogical disciplinary guides (Aitken & Sinnema, 2008; Anthony & Walshaw, 2007; Education Review Office, 2021) makes research evidence and exemplars of disciplinary practice accessible to their communities, and advocates strategies to improve teaching quality:

‘Given its size, the document may seem daunting, but it does lend itself to being studied in smaller chunks. Heads of department could use it a section at a time as the focus for teacher professional development. A session might revolve around one mechanism or part of a mechanism. For example, there could be a focus on group work skills (community), before students are asked to work in groups.’ (Aitken & Sinnema, 2008, p. 20).

Multiple studies associate teacher autonomy with ‘loose’ curriculum content (Kácovský et al., 2022, p. 397; Trask & Cowie, 2022; Zohar & Hipkins, 2018). In the MYP and NZC (Fig. 3) this feature was matched with a strong emphasis on Kuhn’s learner-oriented subthemes (Table 3), consistently evoking the development of learners. An expectation of these curriculums is that they provoke discussion and reflection by teachers on intrinsic, contextual educational aspects of their planning.

The curriculums that were linked to external assessment had large numbers of cognitive components (Procedural and Declarative knowledge). Such ‘tight’ curriculums are typically accountable to high stakes testing (Trask & Cowie, 2022), of which IGCSE examinations are an example. In contrast, benchmarking tests such as NAEP have been characterised as low stakes because students’ results do not impact them as individuals (Finn, 2015). However, these tests are far from benign; they impact school reputations, amplify social inequities, and manipulate teachers’ identities as educators (Corcoran et al., 2011; Ford, 2013; Rose et al., 2020; Thompson & Cook, 2014). Regardless of whether it was Mode 1 (CAIE, ACv9) or Mode 2 (CC), all the curriculums that involved students in a form of external assessment were found to have comparable ‘tightness’ (Fig. 3).

Neo-conservative traditionalism is implicit in tight curriculums, and it is likely to detract from their metacognitive inclusions. Neo-conservative traditions view teachers’ roles as knowledge ‘transmitters’, conflicting with technical-instrumentalist pedagogies in which ‘students’ minds as an important factor in instruction, viewing the teacher’s major role as a mediator of knowledge construction by the child’ (Zohar, 2004, p. 130).

Modality alone is insufficient for delivering the metacognitive expectations described in curriculums. The optional elaborations of epistemic metacognition in the ACv9 (Mode 1), and the aspirational expressions about epistemological understanding in the CC (Mode 2) are countered by their tightness, provoked by external assessment.

(RQ3.) Experiential learning that develops students’ metacognition will not be prioritized in curriculums that are closely linked with forms of external assessment.

Teachers make pragmatic decisions about how they will navigate tensions between ‘kind of knowledge’ and ‘the use or the object of the knowledge’ (Mevarech & Kramarski, 2014, p. 38) in curriculums. Involving students in CUN tasks that demand high order cognitive procedures is challenging. Curriculums that incorporate mechanisms to build professional communities of practice, the MYP and NZC, may yet fail in their implementation, because many teachers lack the ‘epistemic awareness’ to implement the pedagogies of metacognition effectively (Zohar & Hipkins, 2018).

Curriculums that mandate declarative and procedural detail for external assessments that risk exposing the school to performance outcomes that are remote from the latent, potential benefits of process-driven metacognitive pedagogies, are not attractive environments for experiential learning. The inclusion of generic metacognitive dimensions, or as optional elaborations in tight curriculums is unlikely to drive pedagogical reform.