The zoo task: A novel metacognitive problem-solving task developed with a sample of African American children from schools in high poverty communities

Metacognition is important for monitoring and regulating cognitive processes, decision-making, problem-solving and learning. Despite widespread interest in metacognition, measuring metacognition in children poses a significant challenge. Some qualitative and observational metrics exist, but are restricted by scalability, range of metacognitive components measured, and use of different metrics compared with tasks for adults. We developed the Zoo Task - a novel, scalable, paper-based task that measures multiple aspects of metacognition that is less conflated by other variables like verbal ability and does not require video recording children. Children (N = 204, ages 7-12 years, mostly from African American backgrounds) attending schools in high poverty urban areas contributed to its development. In addition, they completed a standard metacognition of memory task similar to those already used with children and adults. The results indicate that the novel task trials are reliable and have good criterion validity. The Zoo Task could bridge the current gap between existing metrics of metacognition for children and adults.