Metacomprehension Accuracy Research Articles

Feedback for learning from text: What kind and where in the text is most effective?

Etextbooks have the affordance of providing immediate feedback for review questions on the content. However, it needs to be clarified what type and placement of feedback is most effective. College and high school students (N = 390) were randomly assigned to receive either correct-answer-only feedback or elaborative feedback either in the middle-and-end of the textbook excerpt or the end only. Elaborative feedback at the end of the text had more accurate posttest scores and more efficient learning (based on time reading per correct answer) than did other conditions. Metacomprehension accuracy, based on the difference between predicted performance and actual performance, did not reliably differ by condition. Neither the perceived difficulty of the text nor the review questions reliably differed based on feedback condition. This study has practical implications for the design of etextbooks provided the findings generalize across disciplines and entire etextbooks.

How does virtual peer presence relate to learning from video lectures and subsequent explanation generation? The moderated mediating roles of motivation and explanation characteristics

Finding effective ways to improve students’ learning from video lectures will not only improve online education efficacy, it will also play an important role in the digital transformation of education. Generating written explanations has shown some benefits for learning, and peer presence may be an implementation-related boundary condition. This study tested the impacts of virtual peer presence (presence vs. absence) and generative tasks (generating explanations vs. no generation) on students’ learning in a video-based learning context. Students’ attention, meta-comprehension accuracy, motivation, cognitive load, learning achievements, and explanation characteristics were measured. Results showed some benefits of having a virtual peer, and of generating written explanations on students’ learning. Moreover, mediating analyses revealed the mediating role of motivation between peer presence and learning achievement, and moderated mediating analyses revealed the moderating role of explanation characteristics between peer presence and motivation. Our findings not only extend the understanding of the positive effects of generating written explanations in video-based learning contexts, they also provide implications for improving students’ learning from video lectures as well as optimizing online video lectures.

교수를 통한 학습(learning-by-teaching)이 메타인지적 판단에 미치는 영향

The present study investigated the effect of learning-by-teaching on learners' metacognitive judgments and examined how beneficial effects of teaching changed depending on whether or not retrieval practice was evoked during teaching. Undergraduate students studied science passages through two learning phases. In the first phase participants read the passage and in the second phase they either restudied them (control), created a video lecture with their notes (teaching without retrieval practice; TnRP), or taught without any materials (teaching with retrieval practice; TRP). Following each phase, they made metacognitive judgments regarding their comprehension of the passages, and then took a final test, which included retention and inference questions. The results showed that, despite the non-significant difference in the final test performance, there were significant differences in the judgments of learning (JOLs) across the three conditions. After the second learning phase, JOLs increased in the control group, remained unchanged in the TnRP group, and decreased in the TRP group, compared to their initial JOLs. As a result, the TRP group showed significantly lower levels of metacognitive bias and higher metacomprehension accuracy compared to the other groups. Our findings suggest that learning-by-teaching can mitigate overconfidence in learners and enhance metacomprehension accuracy, particularly when teaching is accompanied by retrieval practice.

Metacognitive effects of instructional visuals: the role of cue use and judgment type

Prior research suggests most students do not glean valid cues from provided visuals, resulting in reduced metacomprehension accuracy. Across 4 experiments, we explored how the presence of instructional visuals affects students’ metacomprehension accuracy and cue-use for different types of metacognitive judgments. Undergraduates read texts on biology (Study 1a and b) or chemistry (Study 2 and 3) topics, made various judgments (test, explain, and draw) for each text, and completed comprehension tests. Students were randomly assigned to receive only texts (text-only condition) or texts with instructional visualizations (text-and-image condition). In Studies 1b, 2 and 3, students also reported the cues they used to make each judgment. Across the set of studies, instructional visualizations harmed relative metacomprehension accuracy. In Studies 1a and 2, this was especially the case when students were asked to judge how well they felt they could draw the processes described in the text. But in Study 3, this was especially the case when students were asked to judge how well they would do on a set of comprehension tests. In Studies 2 and 3, students who reported basing their judgments on representation-based cues demonstrated more accurate relative accuracy than students who reported using heuristic based cues. Further, across these studies, students reported using visual cues to make their draw judgments, but not their test or explain judgments. Taken together, these results indicate that instructional visualizations can hinder metacognitive judgment accuracy, particularly by influencing the types of cues students use to make judgments of their ability to draw key concepts.

Conceptual overlap among texts impedes comprehension monitoring.

For decades, research on metacomprehension has demonstrated that many learners struggle to accurately discriminate their comprehension of texts. However, while reviews of experimental studies on relative metacomprehension accuracy have found average intra-individual correlations between predictions and performance of around .27 for adult readers, in some contexts even lower near-zero accuracy levels have been reported. One possible explanation for those strikingly low levels of accuracy is the high conceptual overlap between topics of the texts. To test this hypothesis, in the present work participants were randomly assigned to read one of two text sets that differed in their degree of conceptual overlap. Participants judged their understanding and completed an inference test for each topic. Across two studies, mean relative accuracy was found to match typical baseline levels for the low-overlap text sets and was significantly lower for the high-overlap text sets. Results suggest text similarity is an important factor impacting comprehension monitoring accuracy that may have contributed to the variable and sometimes inconsistent results reported in the metacomprehension literature.

Scaffolding self-regulated learning from causal-relations texts: Diagramming and self-assessment to improve metacomprehension accuracy?

The accuracy of students’ relative comprehension judgments when reading texts is typically rather low. This has been ascribed to students grounding their comprehension judgments on cues that are not diagnostic of their actual comprehension level. Asking students to complete causal diagrams—a diagramming scaffold—before judging comprehension has proved effective in providing them with more diagnostic cues and thereby fostered metacomprehension accuracy and self-regulated learning. However, there is still room for improvement. We investigated experimentally whether adding the instruction to students to self-assess their causal diagrams: (1) would lead to more accurate judgments than comprehension judgments, (2) would boost their utilization of diagnostic diagram cues by increasing the saliency of those cues, and (3) would enhance metacomprehension accuracy. Participants (N = 427 secondary students in The Netherlands) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, namely (1) only diagram completion, (2) diagram completion plus diagram self-assessment, or a (3) filler task after reading (control). Self-assessments were more accurate than comprehension judgments, while both correlated strongly. However, no significant differences were found between diagramming conditions concerning diagram cue utilization and metacomprehension accuracy. Apparently, students self-assess their diagrams even without instruction to do so. Nonetheless, the effect of the diagramming scaffold for improving relative metacomprehension accuracy was replicated and extended to absolute metacomprehension accuracy.

Does Providing External Standards After Keyword Generation Improve Metacomprehension Accuracy and Regulation for High School Students?

Abstract: Our study investigated whether comparing expert keywords after learners have generated keywords on their own improves relative metacomprehension accuracy for high school students – as found by Waldeyer and Roelle (2021 ) with university students. Moreover, we analyzed whether this potential improvement in metacomprehension accuracy in turn affects regulation decisions. We conducted an experiment with 142 high school students who read three expository texts and then were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: (a) generation of keywords after reading and a comparison with expert keywords, or (b) generation of keywords after reading without comparison. We found that relative metacomprehension accuracy did not differ between the conditions. Also, regulation decisions were not affected by condition. Our findings are discussed with respect to limitations and implications.

The role of achievement emotions for text comprehension and metacomprehension

When learning from text, it is important that learners not only comprehend the information but also accurately monitor and judge their comprehension, known as metacomprehension accuracy. We investigated the extent to which the achievement emotions high school students (N = 358) experienced during reading influenced their text comprehension, metacomprehension judgments, and metacomprehension accuracy. The results of our correlational analyses indicated that more negative emotions (i.e., anger, hopelessness, and negative emotions overall) were related to poorer text comprehension (small to small-to-medium correlations). Moreover, the students generally used their emotions as cues for making predictions and postdictions about their comprehension (small to medium-to-large correlations). However, concerning prediction accuracy, more positive emotions (i.e., enjoyment, hope, pride, and positive emotions overall) were associated with greater overconfidence and more negative emotions (i.e., anxiety, shame, and hopelessness) with greater underconfidence (small to small-to-medium correlations). Concerning postdiction accuracy, more positive emotions (i.e., enjoyment, hope, pride, and positive emotions overall) were associated with less underconfidence and more negative emotions (i.e., anxiety and shame) with greater underconfidence (small correlations). The results of our cluster and variance analyses largely converged with the correlational results. Consequently, achievement emotions do not necessarily represent valid cues for judging comprehension and can lead to inaccurate metacomprehension, hindering effective self-regulated learning from texts.

The Role of Metacognition (Metacomprehension) and Inferential Ability on Reading Comprehension Ability

In this study, the researchers explored the role of the metacognition component on reading comprehension ability and the role of reading comprehension ability in predicting the level of accuracy of metacomprehension. The first stage of research used experimental research to see the effect of inferential ability and metacognition on the reading comprehension ability. The second stage of research using the correlational method is used to study the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. This study involved 300 primary school students from 10 schools with a composition of 200 students involved in the first phase of research and 100 students involved in the second phase of research. Samples were taken randomly. The results show that the individual's reading comprehension ability can predict the level of metacomprehension accuracy. Metacognitive strategies that are carried out through planning, monitoring and evaluation have a significant impact on students' reading comprehension skills. Inferential-based questions have a significant impact on the accuracy of metacomprehension. In addition, the metacognitive component (metacomprehension), and inferential ability can improve students' reading comprehension skills, especially increasing inferential understanding. The implication of this research is that teachers can consider these aspects as well as optimise the role of these variables to enhance students' reading comprehension skills.

Mind the Gap Between Comprehension and Metacomprehension: Meta-Analysis of Metacomprehension Accuracy and Intervention Effectiveness

Research has consistently demonstrated that learners are strikingly poor at metacognitively monitoring their learning and comprehension of texts. The aim of the present meta-analysis is to explore three important questions about metacomprehension: (a) To what extent can people accurately discriminate well-learned texts from less well learned ones? (b) What are the (meta)cognitive causes of poor metacomprehension accuracy? and (c) What interventions improve the accuracy of metacomprehension judgments? In total, the meta-analysis integrated 502 effects and data from 15,889 participants across 115 studies to assess these questions. The results showed a weighted mean correlation of .178 for nonintervention effects. Many interventions were shown to be effective, such as delayed summary writing and delayed keyword generation. In addition, combining different interventions tended to generate additive benefits. The findings support the transfer-appropriate monitoring account, the situation model framework, and the poor-comprehension theory as explanations for why metacomprehension accuracy is typically poor. Practical implications are discussed.

So you think you can read? Generalized metacomprehension in younger and older adults

ABSTRACT This study explored whether age differences in task-specific metacomprehension accuracy are partly explained by age differences in generalized metacomprehension (GM) or the use of GM as a task-specific judgment anchor. GM was measured before and after a summarization and metacomprehension judgment task and then correlated with prediction judgment magnitude to assess anchoring, and correlated with comprehension and task-specific metacomprehension accuracy to assess GM accuracy. Age differences in these relationships were then tested. GM was related to judgment magnitude but despite age differences in GM ratings, age did not moderate anchoring or GM accuracy. Age differences in task-specific metacomprehension accuracy do not seem to be explained by age differences in GM accuracy or its use as a judgment anchor. However, results are the first to show that older adults anchor task-specific metacomprehension judgments on their GM, providing unique evidence for the Anchoring and Adjustment Model of Metacomprehension in advanced age.

Drawing to improve metacomprehension accuracy

We examined the effect of drawing sketches on metacomprehension accuracy of science texts for 5th grade (ages 10–11) students (Study 1: N = 60, Study 2: N = 62). Students either received instruction on drawing organizational sketches, which focused on capturing the relationships described in texts, or representational sketches, which focused on capturing details described in texts. They then read and drew sketches for texts, predicted their performance, and completed tests. They completed this procedure for five texts. Metacomprehension accuracy was greater for students instructed to draw organizational sketches than for students instructed to draw representational sketches or those in a control group who did not draw (Study 2). Performance on comprehension tests was also greater for students instructed to draw organizational sketches than for students in other groups. The superior metacomprehension accuracy was explained in terms of the cue-utilization framework of metacognitive monitoring (Koriat, 1997).

The influence of summary modality on metacomprehension accuracy

The influence of summary modality on metacomprehension accuracy

Counteracting detrimental effects of misconceptions on learning and metacomprehension accuracy: The utility of refutation texts and think sheets

Previous research has shown that misconceptions impair not only learners’ text comprehension and knowledge transfer but also the accuracy with which they predict their comprehension and transfer. In the present experiment with N = 92 university students, we investigated to what extent reading a refutation text or completing a think sheet compared with a control condition counteracts these adverse effects of misconceptions. The results revealed that both reading a refutation text and completing a think sheet supported learners with misconceptions in acquiring and accurately predicting their comprehension. Completing a think sheet additionally supported the learners in transferring their newly acquired knowledge, even though they were underconfident in their ability to do so. Moreover, learners who completed a think sheet were generally more accurate in discriminating between correctly and incorrectly answered test questions. Finally, delayed testing showed that the learning effects were quite stable, independent of the instructional method. This study reinforces the effectiveness of refutation texts and think sheets and provides important practical implications and avenues for future research.

How Well Do You Think You Summarize? Metacomprehension Accuracy in Younger and Older Adults.

Metacomprehension monitoring accuracy in older age may be underestimated because of how it has been measured. Metacomprehension in the present study was uniquely measured by comparing summary quality to summary quality judgments. The effect of age on this accuracy was assessed and results were compared to those measured with the typical approach. The moderation of age effects by reading goal was also assessed but was an exploratory objective.1. Younger adults (141) and older adults (138) read and orally summarized six expository texts. Participants were randomly assigned to a reading goal condition, with half of each age group summarizing for a professor/boss and half summarizing for an acquaintance. Participants made judgments about the quality of their summaries before and after summarizing, took a multiple-choice test of their comprehension, and made judgments about the accuracy of their answers. Age deficits in metacomprehension were generally smaller when measured with the novel approach and age differences were generally larger for the professor/boss condition than for the acquaintance condition. The novel approach to measuring metacomprehension monitoring accuracy provides more optimism for aging than typical approaches, discussed in relation to age-related changes in language processing preferences.

Personality traits as predictors of reading comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy

Personality is an aspect of individual differences that contribute to one’s confidence and self-esteem, which can then impact on learning achievement such as reading ability as well as self-assessments of reading comprehension (i.e., metacomprehension). The present study investigated the role of individual differences on the Big Five personality in predicting reading comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy before and after a test. Personality traits were found to uniquely relate to reading comprehension, self-assessed confidence in comprehension, and metacomprehension accuracy. Openness to Experience positively correlated with all measures of confidence assessments on reading comprehension but failed to correlate to actual reading performance, indicating that participants were overconfident in their ability to perform. Extraversion negatively correlated with self-evaluation of comprehension performance and did not predict actual comprehension performance. More findings and educational implications from these findings were discussed to address the potential impacts of personality traits on reading and metacomprehension skills.

Refutation texts compensate for detrimental effects of misconceptions on comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy and support transfer.

Misconceptions impair not only learners’ comprehension of a text but also the accuracy with which they judge their comprehension, that is, metacomprehension accuracy. Refutation texts are beneficial to elicit conceptual-change processes and thus to overcome the detrimental impact of misconceptions on comprehension. However, it is unclear whether refutation texts and the conceptual-change processes induced by reading them benefit metacomprehension accuracy in addition to comprehension and how robust these effects are when reading further texts. We conducted an experiment in which we asked 80 student teachers with a varying number of statistical misconceptions to read either a standard or a refutation text on statistics and assessed their comprehension and metacomprehension. In a subsample, we examined the students’ conceptual-change processes during reading with the think-aloud methodology. Subsequently, we asked the students to read a research report that required the application of the previously acquired statistical knowledge and assessed their comprehension and metacomprehension again. The results revealed that the refutation text compensated for the detrimental impact of misconceptions on comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy. The think-aloud data indicated that when reading the refutation text, students with more misconceptions engaged in conceptual-change processes more actively, which in turn supported their comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy. Compensatory effects of the refutation text were also found when the students read the research report. In sum, the findings show that refutation texts are beneficial for both comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy and that these benefits transfer to situations where the acquired knowledge has to be put into practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

The effects of comprehension-test expectancies on metacomprehension accuracy.

A set of four experiments assessed the effects of establishing a comprehension-test expectancy (in contrast to a memory-test expectancy) on relative metacomprehension accuracy. Typically readers show poor relative metacomprehension accuracy while learning from text (i.e., they are unable to discriminate topics they have understood well from topics they have understood poorly). In the first experiment, both readers who were given no test expectancy and those who were given a memory-test expectancy made judgments that were more predictive of performance on memory tests than inference tests. However, readers who were given a comprehension-test expectancy made judgments that were more predictive of inference-test performance. This effect was replicated and extended in two additional experiments that showed an effect of comprehension-test expectancy even when no example test items were provided, and when the expectancy was established only after reading. A fourth experiment showed that establishing a comprehension-test expectancy still had an effect on accuracy even when metacomprehension accuracy was already being improved via a self-explanation activity. The results show robust and reliable benefits to metacomprehension accuracy from a comprehension-test expectancy that serves as portable knowledge that learners can apply to monitoring future learning from text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Lost in narrative? The effect of informative narratives on text comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy

Informative narratives are enriched expository texts that provide to-be-learned conceptual information within a storyline with the aim to foster comprehension. However, research casts doubt on such a benefit for comprehension. Additionally, it is an open question how informative narratives impact metacomprehension accuracy. The results of two experiments (N1 = 63 and N2 = 70 university students) showed that informative narratives were less or not at all beneficial to text comprehension compared with expository texts. Moreover, informative narratives often led to more overestimation of comprehension in terms of predictions, postdictions, and response confidence than expository texts. This seemed to be particularly true, as Experiment 2 revealed, for readers with a lower need for cognition because they were more transported into the storyline of informative narratives. The findings suggest that informative narratives prime the activation of a narrative-specific reading goal and, thus, distract readers from learning and accurately monitoring the to-be-learned conceptual information.

The double curse of misconceptions: misconceptions impair not only text comprehension but also metacomprehension in the domain of statistics

Research shows that misconceptions are usually detrimental to text comprehension. However, whether misconceptions also impair metacomprehension accuracy, that is, the accuracy with which one self-assesses one’s text comprehension, has received far less attention. We conducted a study in which we examined students’ (N = 47) comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy (prediction accuracy and postdiction accuracy) of a statistics text as a function of their statistical misconceptions. Text comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy referred to both conceptual and procedural aspects of statistics. The results showed that students who had more misconceptions achieved poorer conceptual text comprehension and, at the same time, provided more overconfident predictions of their conceptual and procedural text comprehension than students who had fewer misconceptions. In contrast, postdiction accuracy of conceptual and procedural text comprehension was not affected by misconceptions.