Metacognição, Atenção e Autopercepção Corporal na Formação da Autoconsciência: pesquisa e intervenção

Abstract

The perception one has of his cognitive process and of his body is developed thanks to the attention demanded of himself and of the environment. An assumption is made of metacognition, attention and body self-perception as contributing to the formation of selfconsciousness as well as directly influencing learning. This thesis consists of three interrelated and complementary studies, each composing a chapter. In each study, a specific objective of the thesis was investigated by means of an exclusive and independent methodological design. Exploratory and qualitative in nature, the first study aimed to describe children´s perception of their own metacognitive strategies on the basis of a metacognition scale. 106 children ranging from 9 to 12 years old participated by answering a structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed according to semiotic phenomenology and yielded five recurring themes, namely, (1) Joy and motivation; (2) Indecision and curiosity; (3) Getting to know myself better; (4) Anxiety; (5) Different from what I do at school. The diversity in children’s perception of their self-reflexive process, as expressed in the themes, suggest the breadth of their monitoring of their own thoughts, feelings and behaviors, as well as of the experience and assessment of internalized contents. The second study was exploratory and quantitative and sought to detect possible existing correlation among these variables within the same subjects of the previous study. The statistic analysis suggested moderate positive correlation between body self-perception and attention and showed the effect of metacognition onto concentrated attention when referring to the importance of learning about something before studying it and to the practice of creating and order for different pieces of information when it is necessary to recall them. The nominal metacognitive variable that suggests the use of selfquestioning to better pay attention to a problem showed association with concentrated attention, alternate attention and general attention. The third chapter consists of a qualitative case study that sought to describe aspects of metacognition, attention and body self-perception in two nine-year-old children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, who took part in a neurofeedback cognitive training protocol that comprehended 11 sessions. Participant 01 increased score in the EMETA retest, with an improvement in Alternate attention and increase in the total intelligence ratio. Participant 2, in turn, showed improvement in Divided attention as well as increase in the total intelligence ratio. The man-machine interface in the form of games fostered children´s immersion and interactivity in the virtual environment. The participants´ engagement in games and problem-solving are thought to have stimulated reflexivity and may contribute to further research in the area. As final considerations, the thesis suggests self-reflexive tasks as part of school curricula since they provide children with the re-signification of their role as subjects of their own knowledge building process.