FEELING-OF-KNOWING JUDGMENTS AND STRATEGY SELECTION IN SPELLING

Abstract

Metacognitive processes, such as monitoring one's knowledge and selecting appropriate strategies, may be important in skilled spelling. We hypothesized that skilled spellers have knowledge of which words they know how to spell and also that the accuracy with which people monitor their knowledge should be related to the spelling strategies they select. College students provided Feeling-of-Knowing ratings about the spellings of words and also spelled the same words and indicated whether they sounded out or remembered the spellings. Feeling-of-Knowing ratings were moderately correlated with Spelling Accuracy and were more strongly predictive of Spelling Accuracy when Feeling-of-Knowing ratings and spellings were done as part of the same task rather than as separate tasks. Analyses indicate that those who were better at monitoring their knowledge of spelling also chose more congruent spelling strategies. The results suggest that skilled spellers can monitor which words they know how to spell, but this ability to monitor is far from perfect and varies considerably. Further, the results suggest that ability to monitor spelling knowledge is related to strategy selection in spelling.