INTRINSIC, EXTRINSIC AND MNEMONIC FACTORS OF METACOGNITIVE MONITORING ACCURACY

Abstract

The paper reports upon an investigation of metacognitive monitoring accuracy factors in learning tasks of university students. The experiment explores the contribution of some intrinsic, extrinsic and mnemonic factors such as type of learning material, task type, task complexity, and ease / difficulty of performing to metacognitive monitoring accuracy. The study was conducted among 233 university students. The empirical results show the predominance of metacognitive monitoring accuracy, while underconfidence is a downward trend. MMA (+ +) rates of metacognitive monitoring accuracy can be found in the easiest tasks on recollecting pairs of words and MMA (– –) rates – in general knowledge questions of medium difficulty. Overconfidence appears in the most difficult tasks on the deduction inferences and on the logical analogies. The results confirm the dependence of metacognitive monitoring accuracy on the level of ease / complexity of tasks and ease / difficulty of performing; the level of task complexity affects higher rates of metacognitive judgments’ inaccuracies, in particular, in the form of overconfidence. In open-answer questions there is a predominance of MMA (+ +) and MMA (– –) rates of metacognitive monitoring accuracy; underconfidence and overconfidence rates are also higher in openanswer questions. The more complex the task is, the greater is the confidence in the difficulty of performing. The results can be significant in the process of understanding the relationship between metacognitive monitoring accuracy and learning performance of university students.