Improving metacognition in the classroom through instruction,training, and feedback

Accurately judging one’s performance in the classroom can be challenging considering most students tend to be overconfident and overestimate their actual performance. The current work draws upon the metacognition and decision making literatures to examine improving metacognition in the classroom. Using historical data from several semesters of an upper-level undergraduate course (N?=?127), we analyzed students’ judgments of their performance and their actual performance for two exams. Students were instructed on the concepts of overconfidence, received feedback on exams, and were given incentives for accurate calibration. We found results consistent with the “unskilled and unaware” effect Kruger & Dunning (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134, 1999) where lower performing students initially displayed overconfidence and the highest performing students initially displayed underconfidence. Importantly, students were able to change both judgments and performance such that metacognitive accuracy improved significantly from the first to the second exam. In a second study, two additional semesters for the same course used in Study 1 were examined (N?=?90). For one of the semesters feedback was not provided, allowing us to determine whether feedback can improve both metacognitive judgments and performance. Our findings revealed significant improvements in performance paired with decreases in overconfidence on Exam 2, but only for students who received feedback about their performance and judgments. We postulate that feedback may be an important component in improvement metacognitive judgments.     

Can Providing Rubrics for Writing Tasks Improve Developing Writers' Calibration Accuracy?

Rubric-referenced calibration and the interaction between writing achievement and calibration, a measure of the relationship between one's performance and the accuracy of one's judgments, were investigated. Undergraduate students (N = 596) were assigned to one of three calibration conditions: (a) global, (b) global and general criteria, or (c) global and detailed criteria. Students in all three conditions provided global predictions and postdictions of essay exam scores. Although calibration judgments by condition did not affect calibration accuracy overall, statistically significant main effects were found between calibration accuracy by criteria and prior achievement. High achievers made more-accurate predictions and postdictions by criteria than low achievers. Regardless of achievement level, those students in the detailed rubric condition had higher postdictive accuracy for the organization criteria than did students in the general rubric condition.     

Training metacognition in the classroom: the influence of incentives and feedback on exam predictions

In two semester-long studies, we examined whether college students could improve their ability to accurately predict their own exam performance across multiple exams. We tested whether providing concrete feedback and incentives (i.e., extra credit) for accuracy would improve predictions by improving students’ metacognition, or awareness of their own knowledge. Students’ predictions were almost always higher than the grade they earned and this was particularly true for low-performing students. Experiment 1 demonstrated that providing incentives but minimal feedback failed to show improvement in students’ metacognition or performance. However, Experiment 2 showed that when feedback was made more concrete, metacognition improved for low performing students although exam scores did not improve across exams, suggesting that feedback and incentives influenced metacognitive monitoring but not control.     

Calibration Between Undergraduate Students' Prediction of and Actual Performance: The Role of Gender and Performance Attributions

This study investigated changes in male and female students' prediction and postdiction calibration accuracy and bias scores, and the predictive effects of explanatory styles on these variables beyond gender. Seventy undergraduate students rated their confidence in performance before and after a 40-item exam. There was an improvement in students' bias between prediction and postdiction judgments, although male students' decrease in bias was greater than female students. Female students' accuracy remained stable from prediction to postdiction, and male students exhibited greater accuracy then females. Additionally, the task centered and student centered testing styles positively predicted students' accuracy while the social centered style was a negative predictor, beyond the effect of gender. In addition, no attribution was a significant predictor of bias.     

Immediate and delayed effects of meta-cognitive instruction on regulation of cognition and mathematics achievement

The present study addressed two research questions: (a) the extent to which students who were exposed to meta-cognitive instruction are able to implement meta-cognitive processes in a delayed, stressful situation, in our case—being examined on the matriculation exam; and (b) whether students preparing themselves for the matriculation exam in mathematics, attain a higher level of mathematics achievement and meta-cognitive awareness (knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition) as a result of being exposed to meta-cognitive instruction. Participants were 61 Israeli high school students who studied mathematics for four-point credit on the matriculation exam (middle level). About half of the students (N = 31) were assigned to meta-cognitive instruction, called IMPROVE, and the others (N = 30) studied with no explicit meta-cognitive guidance (control group). Analyses included both quantitative and qualitative methods. The later was based on students’ interviews, conducted about a couple of months after the end of the intervention, immediately after students completed the matriculation exam in mathematics. Results indicated that IMPROVE students outperformed their counterparts on mathematics achievement and regulation of cognition, but not on knowledge about cognition. Furthermore, during the matriculation exam, IMPROVE students executed different kinds of cognitive regulation processes than the control students. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.     

Using strategy instruction and confidence judgments to improve metacognitive monitoring

Current models of self-regulated learning emphasize the pervasive need for metacognitive monitoring skills at all phases of the learning process (Winne and Hadwin in Studying as self-regulated learning. In D. J. Hacker, J. Dunlosky, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Metacognition in educational theory and practice (pp. 227–304). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1998). In this investigation, we examined the impact of teaching 5th grade students how to self-monitor their comprehension and make confidence judgments. One treatment class (N = 21) engaged in process-oriented comprehension monitoring training while the other (N = 24) engaged in both comprehension monitoring training and response-oriented monitoring accuracy training. Findings revealed that students in both treatment classes improved their calibration accuracy and showed higher confidence on test performance than students in two comparison classes (N = 47, N = 26) after 2 weeks of instruction. However, students in the monitoring accuracy training class also showed significant gains in overconfidence in comparison to those in the other three classes. Implications for integrating comprehension-monitoring training at the elementary school level are discussed.

Elementary students’ metacognitive processes and post-performance calibration on mathematical problem-solving tasks

Calibration, or the correspondence between perceived performance and actual performance, is linked to students’ metacognitive and self-regulatory skills. Making students more aware of the quality of their performance is important in elementary school settings, and more so when math problems are involved. However, many students seem to be poorly calibrated, with a tendency towards over-confidence. The present study analyzes the relationship between post-performance calibration accuracy and the metacognitive process shown by 524 fifth- and sixth-grade students while solving two math problems. After calculating a calibration index and establishing the stability of students’ judgments and actual performance, differences in the metacognitive process exhibited by students with different calibration accuracy (Accurate vs. Inaccurate groups) were analyzed. The emergence of different calibration patterns and differences in the metacognitive process as a function of mathematics achievement and grade level were also examined. Results indicated that: (a) students in the overall sample were little calibrated and over-confident, showing high stability in their judgments and actual performance across problems; (b) inaccurate students reported using information representation sub-processes (drawing/summarizing) less frequently, but writing and reviewing (and also correcting mistakes) more frequently than their accurate peers; and (c) differences in calibration patterns and the metacognitive process were found when achievement level was considered, whereas grade level did not generate any important effect. These findings suggest the usefulness of process-based measures to examine the metacognitive processes involved in making post-performance judgments, considering achievement and its possible mediating role in this relationship.     

THE IMPACT OF PEER INSTRUCTION ON COLLEGE STUDENTS’ BELIEFS ABOUT PHYSICS AND CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM

The purpose of this study is to assess students’ conceptual learning of electricity and magnetism and examine how these conceptions, beliefs about physics, and quantitative problem-solving skills would change after peer instruction (PI). The Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM), Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS), multiple-choice test was administered as a pre- and posttest with Solomon 4 group design to students (N  =  138) enrolled on freshman level physics course. The number of chapter taught to the students was 14. Problem-solving strategy steps were asked to students in the exam. The analyses of CSEM showed that the treatment group (g  =  0.62) obtained significantly higher conceptual learning gain than the control group (g  =  0.36). The conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills of the students on magnetism considerably enhanced when PI was conducted (37% and 20%, respectively). CLASS results for 5 subscales (conceptual understanding, applied conceptual understanding, problem solving general, problem solving confidence, and problem solving sophistication) supported the findings of CSEM.     

Even after thirteen class exams,students are still overconfident: the role of memory for past exam performance in student predictions

Students often are overconfident when they predict their performance on classroom examinations, and their accuracy often does not improve across exams. One contributor to overconfidence may be that students did not have enough experience, and another is that students may under-use their knowledge of prior exam performance to predict performance on their upcoming exams. To evaluate the former, we examined student prediction accuracy across 13 exams in an introductory course on educational psychology. For the latter, we computed measures that estimate the extent to which students use the prior exam score when predicting performance and whether students should use the prior exam scores. Several outcomes are noteworthy. First, students were overconfident, and contrary to expectations, this overconfidence did not decline across exams. Second, students’ prior exam scores were not related to subsequent predictions, even though prior exam performance showed little bias with respect to predicting future performance. Thus, students appear to under-use prior performance despite its utility for improving prediction accuracy about future exam performance.     

Academic achievement among first semester undergraduate psychology students: the role of course experience, effort, motives and learning strategies

This study investigated the relationship between multiple predictors of academic achievement, including course experience, students’ approaches to learning (SAL), effort (amount of time spent on studying) and prior academic performance (high school grade point average—HSGPA) among 442 first semester undergraduate psychology students. Correlation analysis showed that all of these factors were related to first semester examination grade in psychology. Profile analyses showed significant mean level differences between subgroups of students. A structural equation model showed that surface and strategic approaches to learning were mediators between course experience and exam performance. This model also showed that SAL, effort and HSGPA were independent predictors of exam performance, also when controlling for the effect of the other predictors. Hence, academic performance is both indirectly affected by the learning context as experienced by the students and directly affected by the students’ effort, prior performance and approaches to learning.     

A Comparison of the Effects of Practice Tests and Traditional Review on Performance and Calibration

The impact of practice tests on students' calibration and exam performance for multiple-choice and essay items was investigated. The participants were 59 graduate students enrolled in 1 of 2 sections (practice tests and no practice tests) of an introductory research methods in education course. Practice tests were associated with significantly lower scores on the midterm multiple-choice items and less accurate predictions and postdictions on those items. High-achieving students were more accurate in their calibrations than low-achieving students. Among low-achieving students, prediction and postdiction accuracy was significantly higher for essay than for multiple-choice items. In open-ended responses, a large percentage of students who took the practice tests indicated that they were a beneficial review strategy.     

Training Level, Acculturation, Role Ambiguity, and Multicultural Discussions in Training and Supervising International Counseling Students in the United States

This research partially replicated Nilsson and Anderson’s Professional Psychology: Research and Practice (2004) study on training and supervising international students. It investigated the relationships among international counseling students’ training level, acculturation, supervisory working alliance (SWA), counseling self-efficacy (COSE), role ambiguity (RA) and multicultural discussion (MD) in supervision. In the present study (N = 71), two acculturation variables and RA predicted SWA. SWA and MD did not predict COSE, while language use in acculturation did. Training level differences were only associated with COSE. Findings indicate that supervisors should attend to role ambiguity and multicultural issues when supervising international students, including acculturation issues and their impact on students’ performance. Results are discussed against Nilsson and Anderson’s original study and the implications for supervision of international counseling students.     

Gender Differences in the Use and Effectiveness of Personal Response Devices

The use of personal response devices (or “clickers”) in the classroom has increased in recent years. While few quantitative studies on the effectiveness of clickers have been published, it is generally reported that clickers have been well-received by the students who use them. Two separate populations (Winter 2006 and Spring 2006) of engineering students were given clickers to use during a general chemistry class. Clicker use was compared to student grades for each course. During both terms, a higher percentage of female students than male students “actively participated” in the lectures, where active participation was defined as answering more than 75% of the clicker questions over the course of the term. Active male students earned final grades about 10 points higher than non-active male students. Active female students, however, scored only about 5 points higher than non-active female students. Student learning was assessed by comparing performance on exam questions and clicker questions with similar content. Students who answered clicker questions correctly were 11–13% more likely to answer the corresponding exam questions correctly than were students who did not answer the clicker question. In this paper, we demonstrate the effectiveness of clicker use in the classroom and examine gender differences associated with this use.     

Lazy, Dumb, or Industrious: When Stereotypes Convey Attribution Information in the Classroom

Historically, ethnic minority children and girls have underachieved in American schools. This paper examines the role that stereotypes play in imposing obstacles to success for stigmatized children inside and outside of the classroom. Stereotypes convey explanatory information about groups—such as blacks are lazy, girls are bad at math, and so forth—that may be used as attributions for performance by adults as well as the children themselves. This paper presents a model that brings to light the underlying attributional structures of all stereotypes. Each of these attributional signatures has specific effects on judgments of responsibility and deservingness, help giving or punishment, self-esteem and motivation, and even performance inside and outside of the classroom. Through recognizing that stereotypes are vehicles for attributional judgments, educators are better able to anticipate the effects that stereotypes may have on students and take measures to counteract or diminish them.     

The contribution of classroom exams to formative evaluation of concept-level knowledge

Are students able to learn from exam experience about their level of knowledge for tested topics? Prior to taking an exam, undergraduates made predictive category learning judgments (CLJs) by estimating the percentage of questions they expected to answer correctly for six topics. After the exam, they made postdictive CLJs for the same topics. Supporting the postdiction superiority hypothesis, postdictive CLJs were slightly more accurate than predictive CLJs, indicating students could make better formative evaluations after taking an exam. However, postdiction accuracy was low, and in a second study, accuracy did not differ for predictive and postdictive CLJs. We also investigated two processes required to make accurate postdictive CLJs: monitoring performance for individual questions and accurately classifying each question with respect to the topic that it assessed. Although students performed these tasks adequately, their less-than-perfect performance would constrain their ability to accurately judge their topical knowledge from exam experience.     

First- and second-order metacognitive judgments of semantic memory reports: The influence of personality traits and cognitive styles

In learning contexts, people need to make realistic confidence judgments about their memory performance. The present study investigated whether second-order judgments of first-order confidence judgments could help people improve their confidence judgments of semantic memory information. Furthermore, we assessed whether different personality and cognitive style constructs help explain differences in this ability. Participants answered 40 general knowledge questions and rated how confident they were that they had answered each question correctly. They were then asked to adjust the confidence judgments they believed to be most unrealistic, thus making second-order judgments of their first-order judgments. As a group, the participants did not increase the realism of their confidence judgments, but they did significantly increase their confidence for correct items. Furthermore, participants scoring high on an openness composite were more likely to display higher confidence after both the first- and second-order judgments. Moreover, participants scoring high on the openness and the extraversion composites were more likely to display higher levels of overconfidence after both the first- and second-order judgments. In general, however, personality and cognitive style factors showed only a weak relationship with the ability to modify the most unrealistic confidence judgments. Finally, the results showed no evidence that personality and cognitive style supported first- and second-order judgments differently.     

The Effects of Learning Strategy Instruction on Achievement, Attitude, and Achievement Motivation in a Physics Course

This article reports on the influence of learning strategy instruction on student teachers’ physics achievement, attitude towards physics, and achievement motivation. A pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design with matching control group was used in the study. Two groups of student teachers (n = 75) who were enrolled in an introductory physics course participated in the study. In the experimental group, questioning, summarizing, and graphic organizers were taught. The control group did not receive any presentation on strategy learning. Data were collected via the pre- and post-administration of the Physics Course Achievement Test, the Scale of Attitudes towards Physics, and the Achievement Motivation Scale. Univariate and multivariate analyses of variance on the data revealed no significant differences in the attitude and achievement motivation between the strategy and control groups. However, the strategy group students were observed to have a tendency of more positive attitude and motivation than the control group students. Results also showed that explicit learning strategy instruction was more effective than traditional instruction in improving physics achievement of the participating students. The implications of these results for physics education are discussed.     

Academic goals,goal process cognition,and exam performance among college students

We investigated the nature of and linkages between student-generated academic goals, individual differences in self-regulatory thinking (goal process cognition), and exam performance among college students. In Study 1 (N = 365) and in Study 2 (N = 325), we elicited students' self-ascribed most important academic goals for introductory psychology and their goal process cognition toward their most important goal. In addition, in Study 2, we collected data on students' exam scores in introductory psychology and their most important academic goal and goal process cognition for another course. Three types of academic goals were identified: performance (39–55%), mastery (22–39%), and study strategies (20–23%). Students with mastery academic goals had the highest positive arousal whereas students with performance academic goals had the highest negative arousal. Compared to students with performance academic goals, students with mastery academic goals had lower exam scores in introductory psychology and this difference was mediated, in part, by goal process cognition.     

The Effects of Different On-line Searching Activities on High School Students’ Cognitive Structures and Informal Reasoning Regarding a Socio-scientific Issue

Learners’ ability in dealing with socio-scientific issues has been highlighted in contemporary science education. This study explored the effects of different on-line searching activities on high school students’ cognitive structure outcomes and informal reasoning outcomes. By using a quasi-experimental research approach, thirty-three students were assigned to a “guided searching task group”, while thirty-five students were assigned to an “unguided searching task group”. The treatments of this study were two different on-line searching activities. All the participants were asked to search relevant information regarding nuclear power usage on the Internet during the period of two classes (100 min). However, the students in the un-guided searching task group were asked to search freely, while those in the guided searching task group were provided with a searching guideline. The participants’ cognitive structures outcomes as well as their informal reasoning outcomes regarding nuclear power usage were assessed before and after the conduct of on-line searching tasks. The results of ANCOVA revealed that the students in the guided on-line searching task group significantly outperformed their counterparts in the extent (p < 0.01) and the richness of their cognitive structures (p < 0.01). Also, they significantly outperformed their counterparts in the usage of the two information processing strategies, “comparing” (p < 0.05) and “inferring or explaining” (p < 0.05). Moreover, it was also found that the students in the guided on-line searching task group only outperformed their counterparts in their supportive argument construction (p < 0.05). In other words, the guided searching tasks did help the students obtain better cognitive structure outcomes; however, the increments on their cognitive structure outcomes may only help them to propose more supportive arguments, but their rebuttal construction (an important indicator for their reasoning quality) was not particularly improved.     

The impact of an online tool for monitoring and regulating learning at university: overconfidence,learning strategy,and personality

Being overconfident when estimating scores for an upcoming exam is a widespread phenomenon in higher education and presents threats to self-regulated learning and academic performance. The present study sought to investigate how overconfidence and poor monitoring accuracy vary over the length of a college course, and how an intervention consisting of (1) a monitoring exercise and (2) a monitoring and regulation strategy, improves students’ monitoring accuracy and academic performance. Moreover, we investigated how personality factors (i.e., grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, optimism) influence monitoring accuracy. We found that the Monitoring and Regulation Strategy positively influenced monitoring accuracy and exam scores, whereas the Monitoring Exercise that confronted students with their overconfidence protected students against overconfidence in the second exam score prediction but did not affect exam score. The results further revealed that exam score predictions lowered from the start to the end of the course for both poor and high performing students, but still leaving poor performers overconfident and high performers underconfident. Topic knowledge gained in the course did not wash out the Dunning Kruger effect, and results indicate that poor and high performers use different cues when predicting exam scores. Both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism contributed to overconfidence on exam score predictions but not on the Monitoring Exercise. These findings underline the potential of the Monitoring and Regulation Strategy intervention and ask for upscaling it to include measurements of self-regulated learning activities.