The Relationship between Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies and Academic Achievement of Students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences

Background and objectives: Nowadays, the educational system is considered as the basis and infrastructure of socio-economic, political, and cultural development of the society. Educational progress is one of the important indicators in educational system evaluation. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies with academic achievement of students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences. Method: The present correlation study was conducted on 342 students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences during the 2016 – 2017 academic year that were selected randomly. The data collection tool included a standard questionnaire for cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies and also the average score of the students in order to study academic achievement. Data were analyzed using SPSS (ver.18) software and descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage of frequency), multiple regression tests, independent t-test and analysis of variance. Results: 58.5% (200 students) of the participants were female. The result of multiple regression showed a significant difference between cognitive and metacognitive strategies with academic achievement (p 0.001). There was a statistically significant relationship between gender and academic achievement of the students (p 0.001) and between the faculty that they belonged to with meta-cognitive strategies (P = 0.40) and academic achievement (P = 0.005). Conclusion: Considering the relationship between cognitive and metacognitive strategies and the academic achievement of the students, it is recommended to improve the academic achievement of the students via designing suitable curriculum assignments, teaching learning strategies, and using new educational methods.