Metacognition in art appreciation learning may be considered to play an important role in facilitating independent learning. Developmentally, children in late elementary school grades as well as those in higher grades effectively exhibit metacognition. By analyzing cases of junior high school students and of students in higher grades, this study observed examples of metacognition in which students applied, as strategic knowledge, skills they had learned through art appreciation. To engage more deeply in the act of art appreciation is to facilitate proficiency and the transfer of one’s appreciation skills; this is facilitated by the structuralization of knowledge and thinking. In art appreciation learning, it is important to make sure such strategies are observed as metacognitive knowledge.
Actively incorporating the following into art appreciation learning can be effective: (1) activities for understanding appreciation skills and self-analysis in appreciation essays and (2) activities that facilitate the structuralization of thinking in regard to appreciation.