Developmental Improvements and Persisting Difficulties in Children's Metacognitive Monitoring and Control Skills: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Perspectives.

Natalie S Bayard,Claudia M Roebers,Martina Steiner,Mariëtte H Van Loon

doi:10.1111/cdev.13486

Abstract

This study investigated age‐dependent improvements of monitoring and control in 7/8‐ and 9/10‐year‐old children. We addressed prospective (judgments of learning and restudy selections) and retrospective metacognitive skills (confidence judgments and withdrawal of answers). Children (N = 305) completed a paired‐associate learning task twice, with a 1‐year delay. Results revealed improvements in retrospective, but not in prospective monitoring and control. Furthermore, control remained suboptimal, seemingly a consequence of overoptimistic monitoring. Both age groups showed stronger monitoring‐based control at the second compared to the first assessment. The comparison with a cross‐sectional sample (N = 144) revealed that improvements in retrospective monitoring can be mainly attributed to naturally occurring development, whereas retrospective control seemed to improve due to increased task familiarity.

Highlights

This study investigated age-dependent improvements of monitoring and control in 7/8- and 9/10-year-old children
A mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) with measurement point (T1 vs. T2) as within-subject factor and age group as between-subjects factor revealed a significant improvement in performance over time, F(1, 272) = 123.52, p < .001, η2p =
Both second and fourth graders were found to improve their retrospective monitoring over the course of 1 year, while their prospective monitoring did not improve, at least not on group level

Summary

Introduction

This study investigated age-dependent improvements of monitoring and control in 7/8- and 9/10-year-old children. Procedural metacognitive skills entail monitoring (evaluation of ongoing cognitive activities: e.g., “How sure am I that I will remember the meaning of the word in the test?”; “How sure am I that the given answer is correct?”) and control Results of the longitudinal study will be reported as Study 1, and results of the comparison with the cross-sectional study will be reported as Study 2

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Results

Conclusion