Metacognition is defined as "cognition about cognition", or "knowing about knowing." It can take many forms; it includes knowledge about when and how to use particular strategies for learning or for problem solving.

Metamemory, defined as knowing about memory and mnemonic strategies , is an especially important form of metacognition." Differences in metacognitive processing across cultures have not been widely studied, but could provide better outcomes in cross-cultural learning between teachers and students.

Some evolutionary psychologists hypothesize that metacognition is used as a survival tool, which would make metacognition the same across cultures. Writings on metacognition can be traced back at least as far as De Anima and the Parva Naturalia of the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

J. H. Flavell first used the word "metacognition". He describes it in these words:

A. Demetriou, in his theory, one of the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, used the term hypercognition to refer to self-monitoring, self-representation, and self-regulation processes, which are regarded as integral components of the human mind. Moreover, with his colleagues, he showed that these processes participate in general intelligence, together with processing efficiency and reasoning, which have traditionally been considered to compose fluid intelligence.

Derek Cabrera (born 1970) is an educational theorist, systems thinking expert, inventor, and cognitive scientist. He is best known for formulating the DSRP theory and method of thinking.

Cabrera received a Ph.D. from Cornell University with a dissertation entitled Systems Thinking, a synthesis of his research in complexity science and cognition. It was recognized as an important contribution to several fields. Cabrera focused his work on the importance of the intersection of ontology and epistemology in understanding human thought and our interactions with the world around us. By training an evolutionary epistemologist, Cabrera advances that knowing how we know things is equally important to what we know. He further suggests that all humans build knowledge, not by merely receiving information, but through the interactive, dynamic relationship between information and thinking, which he terms DSRP. His later book, Thinking at Every Desk, expounds upon these ideas and was recently republished by W.W. Norton.