Metacognitive skills can improve with appropriate instruction, however, educators may not be familiar with these methods of teaching. This study explores what factors influenced students to implement metacognitive skills and how students perceived the purposefully designed metacognitive activity in a high school classroom in South Korea. 252 students were involved in the study and a survey and focus group interviews were employed for the data collection. A linear regression analysis revealed that perceived task values predicted the use of metacognitive skills. A thematic analysis of the interviews showed the possibility of transferring the metacognitive skills to new contexts, and the benefits of student-teacher interactions in developing their metacognitive skills. Implications of the results for research and the instructional design of the metacognitive activities are discussed.