Metacognitive Control Research Articles

The Relationship of Effortful Control to Academic Achievement via Children’s Learning-Related Behaviors

Effortful control (EC) is a temperamental self-regulatory capacity, defined as the efficiency of executive attention [1], which is related to individual differences in self-regulation. Although effortful control covers some dispositional self-regulatory abilities important to cope with social demands of successful adaptation to school, such as attention regulation, individual differences in EC have recently been associated with school functioning through academic achievement including the efficient use of learning-related behaviors, which have been found to be a necessary precursor of learning and they refer to a set of children’s behaviors that involve organizational skills and appropriate habits of study. Therefore, the aim of this study is to review the literature on EC’s relationship to academic achievement via learning-related behaviors, which reflect the use of metacognitive control processes in kindergarten and elementary school students. The findings indicate that EC affects academic achievement through the facilitation of the efficient use of metacognitive control processes.

Task-Specific Neural Representations of Generalizable Metacognitive Control Signals in the Human Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex.

The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) plays a critical role in cognitive control over different domains of tasks. The dACC activities uniformly represent task-generic intensities of control signals across different tasks. However, it remains unclear whether the dACC activities could also encode task identities of control signals across different tasks. If so, how the two types of control information are coherently organized in the dACC? Decision uncertainty is an internally-generated control signal by retrospective monitoring, namely, metacognition, even with no external feedback. We here investigated neural representations of decision uncertainty accompanying three decision-making tasks in the domains of perception, rule-based inference, and memory using trial-by-trial univariate and multivariate analyses on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquired on human male and female healthy subjects. Our results demonstrated that the dACC represented decision uncertainty commonly across the three decision-making tasks. Further, the multivariate fMRI analyses revealed a mosaic form of neural representations of decision uncertainty across tasks in the dACC. The identity and intensity information was separately represented in two dissociable components, the high-dimensional pattern and the scalar magnitude, of the dACC multivoxel fMRI activities. Lastly, a follow-up behavioral experiment confirmed that this mosaic form of neural representations of parallelly existing decision uncertainty across different tasks should lead to mutual interferences more on the intensity, but less on the identity of control signals. Thus, our findings suggest that the dACC with the mosaic form of neural representations could provide task-generic and task-specific metacognitive control signals to guide appropriate control on different decision-making tasks.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Metacognition is a form of cognitive control using internally generated decision uncertainty to guide behavior adjustment with no needs of external feedback. Decision uncertainty as a generalizable control signal is commonly encoded in the human dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) accompanying different decision-making tasks. It remains unknown whether or not the task-specific control information is represented in the dACC. We here revealed that multivoxel functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activities associated with decision uncertainty in the dACC concurrently represented the identity and intensity information. The mixtures of neural representations of decision uncertainty across different tasks should cause specific interferences on each other. Hence, the neural representations of control signals in the human dACC should be task-generic and task-specific.

The Effects of Self-regulated Learning Strategies on Computer Programming Achievement in Teacher Education

This study investigates the effects of student use of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies on their computer programming achievement. Ninety-six students from undergraduate teacher training programmes offered by a Hong Kong university voluntarily participated in the study. Sixty-six of them were first-year students enrolling on an introductory Java programming course, while 30 were second-year students enrolling on an advanced Java programming course. The SRL strategies adopted by participants were measured by the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and were exemplified from the reflective writing of their electronic portfolios. Their achievement in computer programming was evaluated using continuous and end of course assessments. The findings of this study suggest that higher-order cognitive strategies (i.e. elaboration, organization, critical thinking), metacognitive control strategies (i.e. self-regulation) and resource management strategies (i.e. time and study environment management, help seeking) are likely to facilitate a prolonged achievement of computer programming for both novices and non-novices. They can provide insights into designing adequate SRL strategy training to support student learning in computer programming.

Motivation From a Self-Regulated Learning Perspective: Application to School Psychology

Self-regulation of learning involves developing metacognitive awareness (planning, monitoring, and evaluating) of (a) cognition—motivational beliefs, (b) behaviors—persistence, effort, engagement, and (c) affect—enjoyment, interest, and other emotions. Metacognitive awareness creates opportunities to exert metacognitive control as needed, which may involve sustaining or manipulating motivational cognition, behavior, and affect. By adopting a self-regulation perspective, this paper discusses the ways motivation develops within and across academic tasks and situations, as well as the ways learners can be supported to take control of their motivation in those contexts. Applying self-regulation principles in the practice of School Psychology means to consider the role of situation, context, and learners’ socio-historical experiences while empowering learners to focus attention on things they can control.

A Metacognitive Instructional Guide to Support Effective Studying Strategies

Metacognition—the processes whereby learners assess and monitor their progress in learning (metacognitive monitoring, MM) and use these judgements of learning to make choices about what to study in the future (metacognitive control, MC)—has been shown to be beneficial to learning. However, effective learning also relies on metacognitive knowledge (MK)—that is, students’ knowledge about effective study strategies and how to employ them. Few students receive explicit in-class instruction on these topics. Here, we explore if an online instructional guide, which includes information about evidence-based study strategies, example questions for self-testing, and a study calendar to help regulate timing of studying can effectively teach MK to improve performance.While it is unclear if the online instructional guide was related to increases in MK, MM, and MC, we did observe benefits to student performance, particularly in highly anxious students on high-stake assessments such as the final examination. Future research should seek to understand how students were engaging with the guide and how the nature of the engagement impacted their study strategies.

What I know and what you know: The role of metacognitive strategies in preschoolers’ selective social learning

The mechanisms which guide selective learning in young children have been a source of debate. Two experiments were conducted to identify which cognitive processes are involved in selective social learning in preschoolers. In experiment 1, we administered a paired-associate learning task, and collected accuracy and latency of explicit confidence judgments, measuring both implicit and explicit metacognitive monitoring. Results revealed that better implicit metacognitive monitoring predicted better performance on a selective learning task. In experiment 2, we obtained a parental report of children’s theory of mind skills (CSUS) and administered an information-seeking task, measuring implicit metacognitive control. Results revealed that both scores on the metacognitive control task and on the theory of mind questionnaire significantly predicted selective learning performance. These studies provide evidence of an association between preschoolers’ selective learning and implicit metacognitive strategies, but also suggest that explicit metacognitive learning strategies may guide selective learning later in development.

Students’ Perception of the Effect of Formative Assessment on Their Learning

In this paper, we analyse students’ perception of their formative assessment in a Databases course. Two forms of feedback are analysed: interactive questionnaires during class time and self-assessment of lab practices. Qualitative data gathered with a survey is used to conduct a grounded theory qualitative study. Our aim is to understand those aspects of formative assessment that contribute to our students’ learning. The results obtained show that students’ perception is positive for both forms of feedback. Responses about what factors of formative assessment contribute to their learning fall into four categories: formative feedback, metacognitive control (reflective learning), relevant learner activity, and social learning. It is also worth mentioning that students’ perception of the formative assessment has not been substantially affected by the COVID-19 impact on the learning environment.

The metacognitive model of post-traumatic stress disorder and metacognitive therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder: A systematic review.

The metacognitive model of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) implicates metacognitive beliefs, meta-memory beliefs and metacognitive control strategies in perpetuating and maintaining symptoms of PTSD. Despite this expanding area of research, the evidence for the metacognitive model of PTSD has not been reviewed. A systematic review according to the PRISMA statement was conducted. Searches across MEDLINE, PubMed and PsycNET, as well as reference lists of the included studies (2004 to March 2020), yielded 221 records. Two independent reviewers screened articles, which were included where the impact of the constructs of interest on PTSD symptoms was investigated within the framework of the metacognitive model for PTSD. Eighteen articles were included in the review. Eleven studies were determined to have good methodological robustness. Metacognitive therapy for PTSD demonstrated reductions in symptoms from pretreatment to post-treatment, which were maintained at follow-up. Predictors of greater PTSD symptom severity included metacognitive beliefs, meta-memory beliefs, and worry, punishment, thought suppression, experiential avoidance, and rumination. Overall, support was found for the validity of the metacognitive model of PTSD.

Learning strategies in primary school-age students

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between personality traits, motivation and learning strategies of primary school students. A total of 193 students filled out Personality Traits Questionnaire for Children, Goal Orientations Questionnaaire and The Learning Strategies Questionnaire. Results showed that male students, compared to female students, were more inclined to goals aimed at others and non-academic goals. Female students, compared to male students, used meta-cognitive control and deep processing more often. Younger students rated goals aimed at themselves and others more important, and used all three types of learning strategies more often. Regression analyses showed that both personality traits and students’ goal orientations significantly contributed to all of the learning strategies variance. Conscientiousness and emotional stability were the most important predictors among Big five personality traits. Self-oriented goals were significant predictors of metacognitive control and deep processing, while goals oriented at others significantly predicted surface processing.

Metacognitive control, serial position effects, and effective transfer to self-paced study.

Serial position effects involve the differential recall of information based on its temporal order at encoding. Previous research indicates that learners may be aware of these effects under certain encoding conditions, but it is unclear whether metacognitive control is sensitive to serial position effects. The current study examined whether there are serial position effects in participants' study time and whether they can learn about serial position effects under fixed encoding conditions and then transfer what they have learned to self-paced study conditions. Specifically, participants were given lists of to-be-remembered words and studied each word for a fixed duration on initial lists, but self-paced their study time on later lists. Results revealed that self-paced study times oppositely mirrored serial position effects (i.e., briefer study times in the beginning and end of each list), and serial position effects were reduced in self-paced study conditions, particularly in participants initially studying under fixed conditions before self-pacing their study time. Specifically, participants may have monitored their output and, based on observations of forgetting middle items, transferred their learning of serial position effects from prior lists. Thus, participants may use forgetting and serial position information to guide encoding, indicating that fundamental properties of the memory system can be incorporated into the processes that guide metacognitive control.

Dividing attention impairs metacognitive control more than monitoring.

Students consistently report multitasking (e.g., checking social media, texting, watching Netflix) when studying on their own (e.g., Junco & Cotton, Computers & Education, 59[2], 505–514, 2012). Multitasking impairs explicit learning (e.g., Carrier, Rosen, Cheever, & Lim, Developmental Review, 35, 64–78, 2015), but the impact of multitasking on metacognitive monitoring and control is less clear. Metacognition may compete with ongoing cognitive processing for mental resources (e.g., Nelson & Narens, The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 26, 125–141, 1990) and would be impaired by dividing attention; alternatively, metacognition may require little attention (e.g., Boekaerts & Niemivirta, Handbook of Self-Regulation [pp. 417–450], 2000) and would not be impacted by dividing attention. Across three experiments, we assessed the influence of divided attention on metacognition. Participants made item-by-item judgements of learning (JOLs) after studying word pairs under full or divided attention (Experiment 1) and made restudy choices (Experiments 2 & 3). Dividing attention had little impact on the resolution of learners’ metacognitive monitoring, but significantly impaired calibration of monitoring, the relationship between monitoring and control, and the efficacy of metacognitive control. The data suggest that monitoring may require few cognitive resources, but controlling one’s learning (e.g., planning what to restudy and implementing a plan) may demand significant mental resources.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13423-021-01950-9.

Self-Regulated Writing Strategy as a Moderator of Metacognitive Control in Improving Prospective Teachers' Writing Skills

This study was aimed at investigating the accuracy of self-regulated learning as a moderator of the metacognitive control to improve prospective teachers’ writing skills. This study was a mixed-method with the concurrent embedded strategy. The experimental study was carried out to meet the effectiveness of self-regulated learning to improve prospective teachers’ writing skills viewed from metacognitive skills. The research instruments used the observation sheet and writing test. The research findings showed that the self-regulated learning model was effective as a moderator of the metacognitive control in improving prospective teachers’ writing skills. It was proven by the result of the analysis factor of variance (ANOVA) that indicated that the significant value was lower than the sig. level 0.05. This study can be concluded that the self-regulated learning model was effective to improve prospective teachers’ writing skills viewed from metacognitive awareness.

Learning Analytics to Reveal Links Between Learning Design and Self-Regulated Learning

The importance of learning design in education is widely acknowledged in the literature. Should learners make effective use of opportunities provided in a learning design, especially in online environments, previous studies have shown that they need to have strong skills for self-regulated learning (SRL). The literature, which reports the use of learning analytics (LA), shows that SRL skills are best exhibited in choices of learning tactics that are reflective of metacognitive control and monitoring. However, in spite of high significance for evaluation of learning experience, the link between learning design and learning tactics has been under-explored. In order to fill this gap, this paper proposes a novel learning analytic method that combines three data analytic techniques, including a cluster analysis, a process mining technique, and an epistemic network analysis. The proposed method was applied to a dataset collected in a massive open online course (MOOC) on teaching in flipped classrooms which was offered on a Chinese MOOC platform to pre- and in-service teachers. The results showed that the application of the approach detected four learning tactics (Search oriented, Content and assessment oriented, Content oriented and Assessment oriented) which were used by MOOC learners. The analysis of tactics’ usage across learning sessions revealed that learners from different performance groups had different priorities. The study also showed that learning tactics shaped by instructional cues were embedded in different units of study in MOOC. The learners from a high-performance group showed a high level of regulation through strong alignment of the choices of learning tactics with tasks provided in the learning design. The paper also provides a discussion about implications of research and practice.

Trading mental effort for confidence in the metacognitive control of value-based decision-making.

Why do we sometimes opt for actions or items that we do not value the most? Under current neurocomputational theories, such preference reversals are typically interpreted in terms of errors that arise from the unreliable signaling of value to brain decision systems. But, an alternative explanation is that people may change their mind because they are reassessing the value of alternative options while pondering the decision. So, why do we carefully ponder some decisions, but not others? In this work, we derive a computational model of the metacognitive control of decisions or MCD. In brief, we assume that fast and automatic processes first provide initial (and largely uncertain) representations of options' values, yielding prior estimates of decision difficulty. These uncertain value representations are then refined by deploying cognitive (e.g., attentional, mnesic) resources, the allocation of which is controlled by an effort-confidence tradeoff. Importantly, the anticipated benefit of allocating resources varies in a decision-by-decision manner according to the prior estimate of decision difficulty. The ensuing MCD model predicts response time, subjective feeling of effort, choice confidence, changes of mind, as well as choice-induced preference change and certainty gain. We test these predictions in a systematic manner, using a dedicated behavioral paradigm. Our results provide a quantitative link between mental effort, choice confidence, and preference reversals, which could inform interpretations of related neuroimaging findings.

Metacognitive Monitoring and Control in Children’s Prospective Memory

ABSTRACT This study investigated developmental differences in metacognitive monitoring and control in younger (5- to 6-year-old) and older (8- to 10-year-old) children’s prospective memory (PM). Metacognitive monitoring was assessed by asking the children to judge their performance before (prediction) and after (postdiction) performing a resource-demanding event-based PM task. Metacognitive control was evaluated by comparison of ongoing task (OT) performance without and with the embedded PM task (i.e., attentional monitoring costs). Older children outperformed younger children in the PM task and were also more accurate in judging their PM performance than younger children, who greatly overestimated their PM performance. Attentional monitoring costs were found only in older children and were associated with both PM performance and performance predictions, thus suggesting that only older children were able to translate metacognitive monitoring into effective control. This study reports new findings on the relation between metacognition and PM during childhood.

The role of metacognition and schematic support in younger and older adults' episodic memory.

Older adults experience deficits in associative memory. However, age-related differences are reduced when information is consistent with prior knowledge (i.e., schematic support), suggesting that episodic and semantic memory are interrelated. It is unclear what role metacognitive processes play in schematic support. Prior knowledge may reduce encoding demands, but older adults may allocate cognitive resources to schema-consistent information because it is more meaningful. We examined metacognitive awareness of and control over associative information that was consistent or inconsistent with prior knowledge. In Experiment 1, participants self-paced their study of grocery items paired with either market prices or unusually high prices and were tested on the exact price of each item over four study-test lists with new items on each list. In Experiment 2, participants studied items for a fixed time but made judgments of learning (JOLs) at encoding. Older adults better remembered the prices of market-value items than overpriced items. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults studied overpriced items longer than market-priced items, consistent with a discrepancy reduction model of self-regulated learning, but study time did not relate to later recall accuracy, suggesting a labor-in-vain effect. In Experiment 2, participants gave higher JOLs to market-priced items than overpriced items and were generally metacognitively aware of the benefits of schematic support. Together, these results suggest that the benefits of schematic support may not be dependent on or influenced by metacognitive control processes, supporting the hypothesis that episodic memory may be less distinct from semantic memory in younger and older adults.

The effect of time pressure on metacognitive control: developmental changes in self-regulation and efficiency during learning

The effect of time pressure on metacognitive control is of theoretical and empirical relevance and is likely to allow us to tap into developmental differences in performances which do not become apparent otherwise, as previous studies suggest. In the present study, we investigated the effect of time pressure on metacognitive control in three age groups (10-year-olds, 14-year-olds, and adults, n = 183). Using an established study time allocation paradigm, participants had to study two different sets of picture pairs, in an untimed and a timed condition. The results showed that metacognitive self-regulation of study time (monitor-based study time allocation) differed between age groups when studying under time pressure. Even though metacognitive control is firmly coupled at 10 years of age, the overall level of self-regulation of adults was higher than that of children and adolescents across both study time conditions. This suggests that adults might have been more sensitive to experiential metacognitive cues such as JoL for the control of study time. Moreover, the timed condition was found to be more effective than the untimed, with regard to study time allocation. Also, there was an age effect, with adults being more efficient than 10- and 14-year-olds.

Metacognitive control processes in question answering: help seeking and withholding answers

When responding to knowledge questions, people monitor their confidence in the knowledge they retrieve from memory and strategically regulate their responses so as to provide answers that are both correct and informative. The current study investigated the association between subjective confidence and the use of two response strategies: seeking help and withholding answers by responding “I don’t know”. Seeking help has been extensively studied as a resource management strategy in self-regulated learning, but has been largely neglected in metacognition research. In contrast, withholding answers has received less attention in educational studies than in metacognition research. Across three experiments, we compared the relationship between subjective confidence and strategy use in conditions where participants could choose between submitting answers and seeking help, between submitting and withholding answers, or between submitting answers, seeking help, and withholding answers. Results consistently showed that the association between confidence and help seeking was weaker than that between confidence and withholding answers. This difference was found for participants from two different populations, remained when participants received monetary incentives for accurate answers, and replicated across two forms of help. Our findings suggest that seeking help is guided by a wider variety of considerations than withholding answers, with some considerations going beyond improving the immediate accuracy of one’s answers. We discuss implications for research on metacognition and regarding question answering in educational and other contexts.

“I’ll remember everything no matter what!”: The role of metacognitive abilities in the development of young children’s prospective memory

Prospective memory (PM), the ability to remember to carry out future intentions, is a critical skill for children’s daily activities. Despite this, little is known about young children’s awareness of their PM ability (metamemory), how metamemory is affected by PM task difficulty, and how metacognitive abilities might be related to metamemory. The current study examined the effect of task difficulty on children’s PM predictions, actual performance, and postdictions and relations among episodic memory metamemory, metacognitive control, and executive functioning. Children aged 4 to 6 years (N = 131) made PM predictions, completed an easy or difficult PM task, and then made PM postdictions. Children also made predictions and postdictions for their performance on an episodic recall task and then completed an independent measure of metacognitive control and two measures of executive function (working memory and inhibition). Results showed that (a) children’s PM increased with age and was worse in the difficult PM task condition, (b) PM predictions and postdictions did not increase with age and only PM postdictions were affected by PM task difficulty; (c) children’s PM and episodic recall predictions and postdictions were more accurate with age, (d) children’s PM postdictions best predicted PM performance, whereas predictions best predicted episodic recall task performance, and (e) children with better metacognitive control had better PM and more accurate PM predictions. These results are discussed in terms of young children’s optimism surrounding their memory performance and the emergence of early metacognitive abilities.

Policy, culture and practice in teacher professional development in five European countries. A comparative analysis

ABSTRACT In this article, we analyse teacher professional development in five European countries (Italy, Germany, France, England and Finland), comparing their approaches to teacher professional learning and development (PLD). We performed this task using a general framework based on what several studies highlighted so far as key-features in educational systems. PLD is a recent example of change inside the domain of teaching. It represents not only an evolution but also a break with both previously used notions of in-service training and continuous professional development (CPD). We can speak of PLD as an evolutionary process that generates innovative professional competencies. Competencies are a key-feature of expert professionals, characterised by quicker and deeper perception of a relationship between objects, extended use of analysis before to act, more complex frameworks of situations, wider specific knowledge and meta-cognitive control over task performance.