Abstract

This paper reports on a study that investigated understanding of learning amongst a cohort of students entering higher education by engaging them, via drama-based activities, with the process of their own learning (metalearning). The study combined Meyer’s (2004) Reflections on Learning Inventory (RoLI) and Performance Based Research (PBR) in order to raise students’ awareness of the self as learner and encourage them to become researchers into their own learning. The aim was to discover how the cultivation of students’ understanding of their own learning might aid them in developing learning strategies suited to the demands of undergraduate study, and to help formulate study support mechanisms to enhance students’ learning experience. Findings are (1) that the metalearning activities stimulated students to interrogate and move beyond previously unconscious approaches to learning; (2) the metalearning activities enabled educators to understand how they might facilitate students’ development as independent learners.