Reflection on designing: metacognitive interventions to enhance metacognitive awareness, motivation, and performance in design learning

Design education involves ill-defined problem-solving that demands both creativity and self-regulation. While metacognitive awareness significantly enhances learning outcomes and motivation, there is limited empirical evidence on how to systematically foster this skill in design studios. This study aims to investigate whether metacognitive interventions increase architecture students’ metacognitive awareness levels, academic goal orientations, and design course success. In a quasi-experimental design, 84 third-year architecture students were divided into experimental (n = 58) and control (n = 26) groups. Pre-post-test data were collected using the MAI and AGOQ scales. Three structured interventions were implemented in the experimental group over six weeks. In the students who received the interventions, significant increases were observed in metacognitive awareness, mastery-performance goal orientation, and design course grades. In students with high awareness, mastery orientation, metacognitive awareness, and design course grades increased significantly, while in students with low awareness, metacognitive awareness and performance orientation increased. Pretest MAI and AGOQ scores accounted for 72.8% of the variance in grades, with MAI showing the strongest positive influence. Learning and proving orientations were moderately and positively correlated to grades, while avoidance orientation showed a moderate negative correlation. Metacognitive interventions enhance learning outcomes in design education by supporting metacognition and motivation.