ERGOTERAPİ LİSANS ÖĞRENCİLERİ VE YENİ MEZUN ERGOTERAPİSTLERİN ÜSTBİLİŞ BECERİLERİNİN VE ÜSTBİLİŞSEL FARKINDALIKLARININ İNCELENMESİ

Abstract

Kocapınar Y. Investigation of Metacognitive Skills and Metacognitive Awareness of Occupational Therapy Undergraduate Students and New Graduate Occupational Therapists, Hacettepe University Graduate School of Health Sciences Occupational Therapy Program Master's Thesis, Ankara, 2026. The purpose of this study was to examine the metacognitive awareness, critical thinking, reflective thinking, and problem-solving skills of undergraduate occupational therapy students and recent graduates, and to understand the experiential reflections of these processes. A mixed-methods design was adopted. The study included 231 participants for the quantitative phase and 17 participants for the qualitative phase. Sociodemographic Information Form, Metacognitive Awareness Inventory, California Critical Thinking Disposition Scale, Reflective Thinking Scale, Problem Solving Inventory, and a semi structured interview form were used. Participants' metacognitive awareness was high, while their critical thinking, reflective thinking, and problem solving skills were at moderate levels. Female participants demonstrated higher reflective thinking, planning, and debugging skills than males. While childhood location showed no significant difference (p>0.05), participants with higher maternal education had better information management and problem-solving perceptions, and those with higher academic success perceptions had higher metacognitive awareness, critical, and reflective thinking levels. Qualitative analysis yielded eight themes: Awareness Recognition, Analysis-Interpretation, Questioning-Evaluation, Strategy Development-Planning, Decision Making-Implementation, Monitoring-Self Regulation, Evaluation-Reflection-Learning, and Occupational Therapy-Specific Skills. "Awareness and Recognition" emerged as the most intense theme, reinforcing quantitative findings. In conclusion, metacognitive awareness falls short of transforming into action-oriented higher-order thinking skills, suggesting that supporting these skills in an explicit, guided, and systematic manner within occupational therapy education could have positive effects.