Lecturer fluency can impact students' judgments of learning and actual learning performance

Abstract

SummaryThe way in which information is presented can influence students' judgments of learning (JOLs). Carpenter, Wilford, Kornell, and Mullaney (2013) found that students reported higher JOLs after viewing a fluent lecturer (good speaker) versus a disfluent lecturer, whereas actual learning performance was unaffected by lecturer fluency. The current research sought to replicate Carpenter et al. (2013) and examine whether students could improve calibration of their JOLs if provided a second opportunity to do so over a different video. In three experiments, participants watched a video of a fluent or disfluent lecturer, made a JOL, completed a free‐recall test, and then repeated this procedure with a second video. The fluent lecturer generally produced higher JOLs than the disfluent lecturer (for both videos) across all three experiments. However, fluency also had a positive impact on actual learning performance. These diverging results further illuminate the impact lecturer fluency can have on student learning.