Metacognitive awareness, epistemological beliefs, and mathematical resilience as predictors of perceived mathematical problem-solving ability among Ghanaian university mathematics education students: the mediating role of student engagement
Isaac Davor, Ernest Larbi, Francis Ohene Boateng, Abigail Abanamu
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Source: Crossref
Published: Jul 9, 2026
DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1860068
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The purpose of this study is to examine the structural relationships between metacognitive awareness, epistemological beliefs, mathematical resilience, student engagement, and perceived mathematical problem-solving ability among university students. A cross-sectional research design survey was used to examine the research objectives. A total of 350 participants from a population of 2,950 undergraduate students, selected using the Krejcie and Morgan table, were included in the analysis. Exploratory factor analysis with reliability analysis in SPSS software version 27 and hypothesis testing in AMOS software version 23 were used for the analysis. The results indicate that epistemological beliefs, metacognitive awareness, and mathematical resilience are indirectly associated with perceived mathematical problem-solving ability through student engagement. The results indicate that student engagement plays a critical role in mediating the relationship between internal learner characteristics and perceived mathematical problem-solving ability. Practical implications: Mathematics educators should design instructional strategies that strengthen students' metacognitive awareness, epistemological beliefs, and mathematical resilience while creating learning environments that promote active student engagement. Such approaches may help improve students' perceived mathematical problem-solving ability. Teachers can design the learning environment to promote student engagement to improve the students' perceived mathematical problem-solving ability. Although previous studies have examined metacognitive awareness, epistemological beliefs, and mathematical resilience separately or in different combinations, little is known about how these constructs jointly relate to perceived mathematical problem-solving ability through student engagement within a single structural model. To the best of our knowledge, no previous study has simultaneously examined these relationships among university mathematics students in the Ghanaian context.
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