All of us have a different process of learning things, in acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, how can we adapt it and how to understand the different concepts that may take place in our learning process. Some factors can affect our development and perspective and how these influence us in learning. Cognitive and Metacognitive Process, Motivational and Affective Factors are some of the factors that influence learners and learning. These factors can lead to positive mental health, the productivity of ourselves and to become effective learners.
The cognitive factors are mental processes involved in gaining knowledge through experience and comprehension or the ability to process a piece of information through perception, our characteristics that allow us to integrate all of this information to evaluate and interpret our world. These processes include learning, attention, memory, language, reasoning, decision making, etc., which are part of our intellectual development and experience. Metacognitive factors refer to thinking about thinking. These are processes that are used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance. Metacognitive practices increase students' abilities to transfer or adapt their learning to new contexts and tasks and be aware of their strengths and weaknesses as learners, writers, readers, test-takers, group members, etc. An example of a situation I experienced in the past is when our teacher let us write a reflection of what we’ve learned in our homework/class and how we are going to integrate the content into our current learning or what we call "reflective learning". Writing can help the students observe themselves before, during, and after their reading, watching, and listening experience. Reflective writing can also take the form of jotting down their affective and other personal reactions to learning the material.
Motivational and affective factors can influence our learning through motivation and emotions. Motivational factors include achievement, advancement, autonomy, personal growth, recognition, responsibility, and the work itself. Motivation influences the direction, intensity, and quality of behaviors in which students engage. To create motivating environments, we need to understand student perceptions of the value of what they learn, and their beliefs about their ability to do well in the course. When I was in high school, I remember the time when we had group activities/ team competitions in our room, and the group that got the correct answer got some chocolates/candies that’s why it’s so motivating to answer the questions. Recognizing the achievements of the students and appreciating them promptly is important to keep their spirits up. So it would be good to give some rewards to students for what they achieve in their academic phase as a token of appreciation. It will be a motivation for them to perform well and to inspire other students to perform well too. Affective factors refer to the qualities of humans that are primarily emotional: attitudes, the focus of control, interests, values, preferences, self-esteem, and others that can affect their emotional states. It is important because they have a significant influence on students’ determinations of interests, choices, career paths, and future.