یوسف دهقانی

Objective: The aim of this research was to do a comparative survey of metacognition and academic motivation in urban and rural students, in interaction with gender. Method: 400 students were selected from high schools in bushehr townships by a multi-stage cluster sampling. The subjects were 196 urban and 204 rural students, comprising 210 girls and 190 boys. The instrument for studying metacognition in this study was Metacognition Awareness Inventory (MAI). This questionnaire has 2 main dimensions: Knowledge Metacognition and Regulative Metacognition. Another instrument which we study academic motivation by was Inventory of School Motivation (ISM). This questionnaire has 3 cardinal dimensions: Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation and Self-concept. Results: According to the achieved results the urban students were higher than rural students in the whole metacognition scale and in the dimension of knowledge metacognition; And also from the viewpoint of academic motivation, the urban students were the higher group in the dimension of external motivation. Furthermore, for the gender difference in metacognition girls did better than boys in the modality of regulative metacognition. And also in the questionnaire of academic motivation, girls were of higher motivation in all dimensions except for the dimension of self-concept. Conclusion: This study has provided educational psychologists with insight about the cognitive processes involved in learning and what differentiates successful students from their less successful peers. Key words: Cognition, Metacognition, Motivation, adolescent, Gender.