Humans have the ability to monitor and control their conscious cognitive processes. This ability, called metacognition, implies that people can learn to optimize their cognitive processes. Recent research in metacognition provides new ways of accelerating learning and skill transfer through an improvement in the decision-making, problem-solving, and attentional skills of trainees. This paper provides a review of recent research in metacognition and presents recommendations for assessing and facilitating metacognitive skill in trainees.
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