Metacognition and Learning最新文献

Self-regulated learning (SRL) encompasses cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational learning strategies and is highly relevant for academic achievement. Although students have mostly acquired high-level SRL strategy knowledge by the time they reach college, they often show deficiencies in their application of SRL strategies. In order to investigate the gap between SRL strategy knowledge and its application in more depth, it is necessary to develop instruments that assess conditional SRL strategy knowledge for the whole learning process with sufficient validity and reliability. Therefore, based on four distinct studies conducted in Germany, the development and validation of a new Strategy Knowledge Test for Self-Regulated Learning (SKT-SRL) for college students are described. Study 1 describes the development of the test and the results of expert ratings that speak in favour of the test’s content validity. Study 2, the pilot study, was undertaken to gain insight into the psychometric characteristics of the SKT-SRL, examine its relationship to other SRL assessment methods and academic achievement, and reach a sense of its validity. Studies 3 and 4 present the results of two validation studies for the SKT-SRL; they investigated its psychometric characteristics, convergent validity, factorial structure, test–retest reliability, and its relationship to academic achievement as well as other study-relevant factors. Overall, the results are promising and the SKT-SRL mostly showed sufficiently valid assessments. To conclude, the SKT-SRL is a useful tool for analysing conditional SRL strategy knowledge in college students and can be used for further research on the relationship between SRL strategy knowledge and strategy usage.

Employment of appropriate study strategies is crucial for academic success. Previous findings on whether use of specific strategies is related to academic performance in real educational settings were inconsistent, and their participant samples were largely restricted to undergraduate students. The current study recruited a large sample (i.e., 4,331 participants) of elementary school students to explore the association between use of specific strategies and academic performance by using multilevel linear regression models, in which two potential confounding variables (i.e., SES and gender) are controlled for. The results showed that after controlling for SES, gender and other study strategies, use of spaced study, rereading and help-seeking positively related to academic performance in elementary school students. However, use of self-testing, highlighting/underlining, note-taking, summarizing, making diagrams, making study plans and studying with friends did not positively correlate with academic performance in elementary school children. Instructors and parents are suggested to encourage children to study by using the effective study strategies, and teach them how to maximize the benefits of these strategies.

Abstract

The MITCA method (Homework Implementation Method) was developed with the purpose of turning homework into an educational resource capable of improving students' self-regulated learning and school engagement. In this paper, following current theoretical frameworks, we evaluate the effect of the MITCA method on students' self-regulated learning. In general, MITCA includes the assignment of diverse, concrete and valued by the students tasks which are completed on a weekly basis. We analyze the differences in self-regulation strategies in a sample of 533 fifth (n = 270) and sixth graders (n = 262) with an age range of 10–12 years old (47.5% boys and 52.5% girls), who were about equally distributed to an experimental and a control group. Trained teachers used MITCA to prescribe homework in the experimental group for twelve weeks. The students of the experimental group reported significantly higher time management and environmental management. However, there were no significant differences observed in other aspects of self-regulation, and the experimental group did not perceive a deficit in these areas. Our results indicate the effectiveness of MITCA on students’ self-regulation of learning and discussed in light of current theories and evidence in the field.

Abstract

Previous literature suggests learners can adjust their encoding strategies to match the demands of the expected test format. However, it is unclear whether other forms of metacognitive control, namely, study time allocation and restudy selection, are also sensitive to expected test format. Across four experiments we examined whether learners qualitatively adjust their allocation of study time (Experiment 1) and restudy selections (Experiments 2a, 2b, and 3) when expecting a more difficult generative memory test (i.e., cued-recall) as compared to a less difficult non-generative memory test (i.e., forced-choice recognition). Counter to our predictions, we found little evidence that learners shift their study time allocation and restudy selection choices toward easier material when expecting a relatively more difficult cued recall test, even after acquiring experience with each test format. Instead, based on exploratory analyses conducted post-hoc, learners appeared to rely heavily on the success with which they retrieved associated studied information at the time that restudy selections were solicited. Moreover, counter to some extant models of self-regulated learning, learners tended to first choose difficult rather than easy items when making their restudy selections, regardless of expected test format. Together, these novel findings place new constraints on our current understanding of learners’ metacognitive sensitivity to expected test format, and have important implications for current theoretical accounts of self-regulated learning.

The paper describes a theoretical framework for the study of teachers’ promotion of self-regulated learning in the classroom. The Self-Regulated Learning Teacher Promotion Framework (SRL-TPF) utilizes the ICAP theory to assess the affordances of the learning environment for the indirect promotion of SRL, proposes new variables in the investigation of the direct promotion of SRL, and examines how these two ways to promote SRL are related. The SRL-TPF was used to examine the direct and indirect promotion of SRL in filmed observations of 23 Australian classrooms. The results revealed a paucity in the design of Constructive and Interactive lesson tasks that support the indirect promotion of SRL and a preference for the direct support of SRL through implicit strategy instruction and the provision of metacognitive reflection and support. There were important teacher differences in both the direct and indirect promotion of SRL, but the teachers who were more likely to design Constructive and Interactive lesson tasks did not necessarily promote SRL directly and vice versa. The research contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between teaching what to learn (subject content) and how to learn (SRL knowledge and strategies).

When students are left to choose their own approaches to studying, they frequently engage in ineffective learning strategies, such as rereading textbooks or cramming. Given this natural tendency amongst students, there has been significant interest in how to increase the use of more effective methods of studying. Efforts to-date have typically entailed either explicit instruction (e.g., teaching students which study habits are more/less effective) or direct experience (e.g., having students attempt to utilize an effective technique), yielding somewhat mixed results. The aim of the present study was to examine whether a combination of explicit instruction and direct experience with effective learning strategies positively impacts how students study. After an in-classroom intervention, 316 participants (177 women, M age = 19.03) were asked to indicate how frequently they used various studying strategies and how effective they perceived them to be. Participants demonstrated both a change in knowledge regarding the (low) utility of more ineffective strategies and indicated that they were using those strategies less frequently. However, there was not a global change in their perceptions/use of more effective strategies. Instead, there were increases only for a subset of the more effective strategies. These results support metacognitive theories of desirable difficulties, wherein individuals prefer less effortful strategies and less effortful shifts in behavior, as well as suggest possible directions for furthering effective learning practices amongst students.

Abstract

According to an aptitude-treatment interaction experiment (Lehmann et al., Metacognition and Learning, 11, 89–105, 2016, N = 47, published in Metacognition and Learning), perceptually disfluent texts facilitated retention and comprehension performance (but not transfer performance) only for learners with higher working memory capacity (WMC). No effects of WMC for a fluent text were found (albeit theoretically, fluency may be more advantageous for learners with lower WMC). The findings of our (pre-registered) direct replication (supervised online sample of N = 96) show a substantial deviation from the original results: In contrast to the interaction effect (disfluency and WMC) of the primary study, we obtained null results for disfluency, WMC, and their interaction for all learning outcomes. Our replication data are not indicative of WMC as a boundary condition moderating the disfluency effect on learning. We discuss discrepancies in the results of the primary study and our direct replication regarding particular methodological and analytical decisions, questioning the robustness and generalizability of Lehman et al.’s results beyond their primary study.

Learning from texts means acquiring and applying knowledge, which requires students to judge their text comprehension accurately. However, students usually overestimate their comprehension, which can be caused by a misalignment between the cues used to judge one’s comprehension and the cognitive requirements of future test questions. Therefore, reading instructions might help students to use more valid cues and hence to make more accurate judgments. In two randomized experiments, we investigated the effect of application instructions (in contrast to general and memory instructions) on judgment bias regarding memory test performance and application test performance. In Experiment 1, 131 pre-service teacher students read two texts: For the first text (pretest phase), all participants received general reading instructions. For the second text (testing phase), they received one of the three reading instructions. Main results were that the general reading instructions in the pretest phase resulted in underestimation for memory test performance and overestimation for application test performance. Results from the testing phase yielded mixed effects and, overall, no strong evidence that reading instructions, and in particular application instructions, are beneficial for debiasing judgments of comprehension. Experiment 2 (N = 164 pre-service teachers) restudied the effects with the same texts but a different study design. Results replicated the effects found in the testing phase of Experiment 1. Overall, the results indicated that reading instructions without further support are not sufficient to help students to accurately judge their comprehension and suggested that text characteristics might impact the effect of reading instructions on judgment bias.

Prior research suggests most students do not glean valid cues from provided visuals, resulting in reduced metacomprehension accuracy. Across 4 experiments, we explored how the presence of instructional visuals affects students’ metacomprehension accuracy and cue-use for different types of metacognitive judgments. Undergraduates read texts on biology (Study 1a and b) or chemistry (Study 2 and 3) topics, made various judgments (test, explain, and draw) for each text, and completed comprehension tests. Students were randomly assigned to receive only texts (text-only condition) or texts with instructional visualizations (text-and-image condition). In Studies 1b, 2 and 3, students also reported the cues they used to make each judgment. Across the set of studies, instructional visualizations harmed relative metacomprehension accuracy. In Studies 1a and 2, this was especially the case when students were asked to judge how well they felt they could draw the processes described in the text. But in Study 3, this was especially the case when students were asked to judge how well they would do on a set of comprehension tests. In Studies 2 and 3, students who reported basing their judgments on representation-based cues demonstrated more accurate relative accuracy than students who reported using heuristic based cues. Further, across these studies, students reported using visual cues to make their draw judgments, but not their test or explain judgments. Taken together, these results indicate that instructional visualizations can hinder metacognitive judgment accuracy, particularly by influencing the types of cues students use to make judgments of their ability to draw key concepts.

Judgments of learning (JOLs) are often reactive on memory for cue-target pairs. This pattern, however, is moderated by relatedness, as related but not unrelated pairs often show a memorial benefit compared to a no-JOL control group. Based on Soderstrom et al.’s, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 41, 553-558, (2015) cue-strengthening account, JOLs direct attention towards intrinsic cues which aid retrieval. However, reactivity may also reflect specific processing of cue-target associations, which is applied whenever semantic associations are available, even when these associations are indirect. The present study tested this possibility using mediated associates (e.g., lion – stripes) which are directly unrelated to each other and indirectly related through a non-presented mediator (e.g., tiger). Based on a cue-strengthening account, no reactivity would be expected for mediated associates. Alternatively, if cue strengthening primarily reflects enhanced processing of cue-target relations, memory benefits would be expected whenever pairs are semantically related, even if pairs are indirectly related through mediators. Overall, reactivity extended to mediated associates in cued-recall (Experiment 1) and recognition tests (Experiments 2 and 3). Interestingly, JOL reactivity was consistently found on recognition of non-mediated unrelated pairs (Experiments 2–4). Thus, positive reactivity on related pairs for cued-recall testing likely reflects increased activation of cue-target associations. However, because recognition is based on familiarity cues, reactivity occurs globally for all pair types, regardless of cue-target relations.