Predictors of Adults’ Metacognitive Monitoring Ability: The Roles of Task and Item Characteristics

Abstract

Learners’ monitoring judgments during reading are based on a variety of cues, and the roles of task features in promoting and constraining judgment accuracy are beginning to be understood. This work examined task and item characteristics influencing adults’ monitoring of performance during reading and study tasks. In Study 1a, adults (N = 242) read an expository text, provided text ratings, completed comprehension items, and provided confidence judgments during testing. Readers’ text complexity ratings predicted their item-level confidence, while their ratings of interest and cohesion predicted their bias scores. In Study 1b, the roles of linguistic features in predicting item-level monitoring estimates were examined using the comprehension items (item n = 23) from Study 1a. Selected item features, including length, ease, density, concreteness, and meaningfulness, were examined. Item ease significantly predicted item-level bias, while ease, density, concreteness, and meaningfulness predicted item-level confidence. Study 2 (N = 68) applied similar procedures to examine the effect of item feedback on the contributions of item features to learners’ monitoring. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two item feedback conditions. Item density emerged as a significant predictor of item-level confidence, but only for those who first received item-by-item correctness feedback followed by massed feedback. Implications for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• Metacognition
• monitoring
• confidence
• text ratings
• item characteristics
• adults

Compliance with ethical standards

This research was supported in part by Psi Chi. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. IRB approval was obtained prior to collection of data. All data were collected in accordance with standard ethical guidelines governing human subjects research; informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to data collection.

Notes

1 A one-sample t-test revealed that participants’ bias scores did not differ significantly from zero, t = 1.62, p = 0.11. However, examination of the distribution of bias scores indicated that bias scores ranged from −0.95 to 0.70. Further, approximately 52.07% (n = 126) of bias scores exceeded 0.01, while 24.79% (n = 60) of bias scores exceeded 0.19 (representing the 75^th percentile of the score distribution).

2 Sensitivity analysis conducted via G*Power (3.1.9.2; Erdfelder et al., 1996) revealed a critical t statistic of 2.12 was needed to achieve statistical significance on the item features.

3 An alternative explanation for this finding is that participants instead evidenced less underconfidence (rather than increased overconfidence) relative to their performance. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

4 A one-sample t-test revealed that participants’ bias scores differed significantly from zero for both DF-IF, t= −3.37, p < 0.05, and IF-DF conditions, t= −2.56, p < 0.05. Bias scores ranged from −0.27 to 0.42 for the DF-IF condition, and from −0.29 to 0.41 for the IF-DF condition.

5 Sensitivity analysis conducted via G*Power (3.1.9.2; Erdfelder et al., 1996) revealed a critical t statistic of 2.05 was needed to achieve statistical significance on the item features.