Abstract—The study contributes to the growing body of research on the importance of learners' Metacognitive Awareness (MA) beyond childhood. It offers insights into the key factors that explain young people's study-related decisions during adolescence and into adulthood. The study examines the role of adolescent MA in predicting students' (N = 5,879) intentions to pursue further studies in upper secondary education, and also describes how parental education and student learning outcomes relate to these intentions. MA was found to be a key factor in predicting students' intentions to pursue further studies. MA, along with parental education, also predicts learning outcomes. Boys’ decisions are slightly more influenced by their parents than by their MA, while girls are more independent decision-makers. High achievers have higher MA scores than low achievers. We suggest that teachers should support students' MA and encourage them to achieve better learning outcomes, thereby promoting further studies at the upper secondary level. 
 

Keywords—metacognitive awareness, adolescence, learning outcomes, intentions for upper secondary education, parental education 

Cite: Heli Kallio, Manne Kallio, Kalle Virta, and Tuike Iiskala, "Adolescents' Intentions for Upper Secondary  Education: The Role of Metacognitive Awareness," International Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 113-120, 2026.

Copyright © 2026 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).