Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a new measure of metacognitive awareness whilst driving, the Driver Metacognition Questionnaire (DMQ). Two independent samples ( N = 300 each) were recruited via a third‐party recruitment service to complete an online survey. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on the two samples revealed the DMQ contained two reliable factors: metacognitive awareness of attention whilst driving and metacognitive awareness of thoughts and feelings whilst driving. The DMQ also demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity, as correlational analyses showed the DMQ was positively associated with existing measures of metacognition and self‐regulation but negatively associated with measures of impulsivity. Finally, the DMQ was shown to positively influence safety‐related driving behaviours but negatively predict driving errors and aggressive driving behaviour via influences on broader driving self‐regulatory skills. The DMQ can be used in future research to explore how thoughts, feelings, and attention can be adequately regulated whilst driving.