Researches brought important evidences on the relation between specific strategies of study and elementary school performance. The objective of this investigation is to elaborate and evaluate a qualification course for elementary school teachers, aiming at developing their students learning of cognitive, metacognitive and motivational abilities. A pre-posttest design was used. Ten 5th grade teachers and 54 students participated in the study. The instruments used with the students were the Raven, the Scale for the Evaluation of Motivation to Learn, the Strategies for Learning Scale and the School Performance Test. For the teachers, the Metacognitive Questionnaire and a self-evaluation questionnaire were used. Results of the within and between group analyses showed a time effect for most variables and a group effect only for the strategies of learning variable. It is possible to conclude that teachers may explicitly act as mediators in the development of cognitive abilities of learning.
Cognition; metacognition; teaching
