Feeling of difficulty: An aspect of monitoring that influences control

This study aimed at delimiting possible relations of feeling of difficulty (FOD) with control ideas pertaining to a particular task. Participants were 274 students of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. They were tested with two mathematical tasks; they were also asked to give ratings of the feeling of difficulty at 4 phases: In advance of problem solving, during planning of the solution, after solution production, and an overall estimation. Participants also gave ratings for control ideas such as need to know the rule, to do the computations right, to have practice, to use one’s thinking and to have help from others. Path analysis and ANOVAs were used for the identification of the relations and differentiations of ratings in the four phases of problem solving. Results indicated that FOD varied from phase to phase and influenced ideas related to control. Feeling of difficulty in the main was only indirectly related to performance via control ideas.