The general objective is to investigate, in a metacognitive perspective, the learning of diagnostics with undergraduate students in a hospital nursing area. Of qualitative nature, the scientific phenomenological method was applied through individual interviews with nineteen students from the fifth year, the last supervised year of hospital area internship. The theme analysis of content indicated that the students had difficulties in their learning processes related to theoretical structure, practical diagnostic application, knowledge and use of diagnostic classifications, and lack of perception of the clinical thinking and results involved in diagnostics. Concluding that metacognition, including knowledge of regulation strategies of performance and the planning and control of the learning process, may be effective in controlling the difficulties in the students' learning.
Learning; Nursing Diagnostics; Cognition