The seeds for this volume were planted prior to the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (SARMAC) conference in Boulder, Colorado. The editors of this volume planned to organize a symposium for the conference on applications of metacognition research. Within days of their initial emails to potential participants, the symposium had become symposia, and in the end, there were three separate sessions on metacognition at that conference. The enthusiasm of metacognition researchers, generally a theoretically oriented lot, for applications was palpable. Most of these chapters stem from discussions held at that conference.

During the conference barbecue, the editors began mapping out a volume to be called Applied metacognition, whilst simultaneously contemplating the Rocky Mountains in the distance, trying to eat a barbecue with a plastic knife while sitting on the grass, and helping themselves to the contents of a complimentary bar. The conversation and wine flowed freely, and eventually the current volume took shape. Our aim was a book that would cover as many potential applications of metacognitive research as possible and would be inclusive of different approaches within the field. To meet this aim, we decided to approach some of the foremost researchers in the area. Fortunately, many of them were at the same barbecue, and so the task was not as onerous as it might have been.

There are many people to thank who helped us prepare the book. We gratefully acknowledge all of the authors who contributed to this book.