Definition
Plain language
Awareness of what facts you need for a problem and which ones you actually know.
As stated in the literature
One of Flavell's two metacognition dimensions: awareness of relevant facts, definitions, and constraints, plus knowledge of one's own knowledge state; scored in MaR by coverage of gold knowledge units.
Why it matters: Knowing what you know (and don't) lets a reasoner pull in the right facts and flag gaps instead of confidently guessing.
For example, before solving a geometry problem, a student lists the formulas they remember and notes which ones they're shaky on.
Heard on the show
“The first is metacognitive knowledge: your awareness of what's relevant to a problem and what you don't yet know.”Episode 079 — An Old Idea From Cognitive Psychology Reshapes How We Reward Reasoning Models