Elizabeth S. Ghatala

Memory strategy monitoring in adults and children

In five experiments, adults and 11- to 13-year-old children were exposed to two study strategies for vocabulary learning: repetition of words with meanings and associative elaboration (the keyword method). Subjects were asked to choose one of the two study methods for learning a 24-item list of new vocabulary words. Adults demonstrated awareness of the relative efficacy of the two study strategies only following practice with the two methods accompanied by a test on the practice list. They did not exhibit an awareness of the relative utility of the two methods when the practice test was omitted. Children, in addition to having to experience the practice list and test, required explicit feedback about their performance with the two strategies before they demonstrated clear awareness that the elaboration method was superior. The data are relevant to recent positions on the role of metacognitive experiences for metacognitive knowledge and cognitive actions.

Test monitoring in young grade school children

Abstract Younger (6- to 8-year-olds) and older (9- to 11-year-olds) children took a multiple-choice test that yielded comparable performances at the two age levels. When subjects estimated their overall performance at the end of the entire test, older children were more accurate and less variable than younger children. This developmental shift in monitoring of performance could not be explained by the development of estimation skills per se, nor could it be explained by developmental changes in monitoring the correctness of responses to individual items. Younger children were less accurate in judging the correctness of responses to individual items than were older children, with older children manifesting higher signal-detection indices. Statistically significant developmental improvements in monitoring at the item level, however, occurred in girls only.

The effects of strategy—Monitoring training on children's selection of effective memory strategies

Abstract Second grade children were given training in general principles of strategy monitoring prior to being exposed to differentially effective acquisition strategies in a memory task. The results showed that even though both experimental and placebo control groups could assess when they remembered better, more experimental than control children attributed performance differences to their strategic behavior and then selected the more effective strategy on a forced-choice trial. These findings indicate that instruction in general memory-monitoring principles is sufficient to effect a change in strategy usage. The study therefore provides direct experimental support for the presumed relationship between metacognitive knowledge and subsequent strategy use.

A componential analysis of the effects of derived and supplied strategy-utility information on children's strategy selections☆

Abstract Second-grade children were either explicity supplied with zero, one, two, or three components of information concerning the relative effectiveness of two memory strategies following practice with the strategies, or they were given strategy-monitoring training designed to enable them to derive for themselves these strategy-utility knowledge components. Selection of the more effective strategy was more frequent and metacognitive knowledge was greater for subjects trained or supplied with three components than those receiving no components of information. Two components of information enhanced strategy selection only when they were supplied to subjects. However, only three-component training subjects, who were prompted to think back to the initial training, demonstrated metacognitive awareness in a later transfer phase.

Training Cognitive Strategy-Monitoring in Children

Second-grade children were given general training in monitoring the utility of strategies, the affective consequences of strategy use, or no strategy-monitoring training. They then performed an associative learning task, first without strategy instructions and then with instructions to use either an effective or ineffective strategy. All training conditions produced short-term maintenance of the effective strategy, but only the strategy-utility training resulted in long-term maintenance. Subjects given strategy-utility training abandoned the ineffective strategy at a higher rate than children given strategy-affect or no training. Responses to metamemory questions indicated that only in the strategy-utility condition was strategy efficacy a prime consideration in strategy-use decisions. This experimental evidence bolsters the case for including monitoring instruction in multicomponent training packages aimed at producing durable strategy use.

The role of strategy utility knowledge in children's strategy decision making ☆

Abstract Ten- to thirteen-year-olds selected between two methods for learning vocabulary meanings, the objectively more effective keyword method and a naturalistic context method. The main hypothesis of the study was that children produce relative strategy efficacy knowledge during practive with strategies but that children may fail to use this knowledge to direct maintenance of the more effective strategy. To evaluate this position, control subjects selected between the keyword and context strategies without the benefit of practice. In three other conditions subjects practiced the techniques before making strategy choices. Simple practice did not increase keyword-method selection. Practice combined with a prompt to think back to performance with the two strategies during practice increased keyword selection to a high level, comparable to keyword selection when subjects were given explicit feedback about keyword superiority immediately before strategy selections were made. Supplementary analyses supported the conclusion that even in the absence of explicit performance feedback, children can be induced to reflect on their use of strategies and the outcome of those strategic actions in a fashion as to affect their subsequent cognitive actions, in this case, strategy choices. The data are discussed with reference to other work on monitoring and metamemorial effects on cognition.

Metacognitive benefits of taking a test for children and young adolescents

The main purposes of this study were (a) to isolate monitoring of test performance from other forms of monitoring and (b) to determine the effect of taking a test on expectations about future performance. Children in grades 1-2, 4-5, and 7-8 were administered a vocabulary test. They either predicted their performance on tests like the one that was administered before taking the test, predicted after taking the test, or made postdictions about performance on the present test. There was unambiguous improvement in the accuracy of after-test predictions and postdictions compared to before-test predictions at grades 7-8 only. Although all age groups discriminated hard from easy items as they were doing them, such discrimination increased with age. In general, there were few sex differences, although whenever statistically significant sex differences in confidence were detected, boys tended to be more confident than girls. These results are consistent with claims that developmental changes in self-regulation could be tied to developmental changes in monitoring of performance and making predictions about future performance based on past performance.

Improving children's regulation of their reading PREP time☆

Abstract Factors influencing childrens perceived readiness for examination performance (PREP) and their self-regulation of study time while reading were investigated. Prior to giving fourth-grade children trials on a reading passage, subjects were informed of the goal of achieving 100% mastery on a factual test over the passage. Children regulated the number of trials taken, providing an estimate of time spent learning. If a child did not reach 100% during these elected trials, he/she was given further trials to reach the criterion. Experiments 1 and 3 contained the same three conditions. In the Study condition, children read the passage as many times as they wished before taking the test. In the Test condition, children read the passage and then were tested without feedback. Children elected as many study-test trials as they wished. The Estimate condition was identical to the Test condition except that following each test children estimated how many items they got correct. In Experiment 1, which employed a multiple-choice test format for assessing mastery, children misperceived PREP and understudied in all three conditions. Experiment 2 indicated that the childrens inflated PREP was due to their certainty about the correctness of their incorrect responses on the multiple-choice test. In Experiment 3, which employed a recall test for assessing mastery, the match between elected study trials and trials needed for mastery was quite close in the Test and Estimate condition but not in the Study condition, where subjects elected less than half the trials needed to reach criterion. PREP-level reports in the Study condition were also far higher than actual test performance. In contrast, reported PREP levels of Test and Estimate subjects following study were an accurate reflection of actual test performance and closely matched the designated criterion. Thus, children effectively regulated study time on a reading task when they assessed their current PREP level against the designated criterion on recall tests (but not multiple-choice tests) during study.

Exploring Teachers' Knowledge of Strategic Study Activity.

AbstractThirty-seven elementary and secondary school teachers were surveyed concerning their knowledge about task-specific study strategies. Ten of these teachers were also interviewed to validate and extend the survey data. Although virtually all of the teachers reported awareness of study strategies, particularly rehearsal strategies, their descriptions of strategy instruction very often focused on teacher-directed activities for learning content. Teachers seldom reported providing students with metacognitive components of strategy instruction—where, when, or why strategies should be used. This study suggests that teachers should be instructed on the nature and value of study strategies, the way of teaching these strategies, the modeling of strategic mental processes, and the role of metacognitive knowledge as a determinant of the effective use of study strategies.

Strategy-comparison opportunities promote long-term strategy use

Abstract This experiment evaluated whether 2-week-delayed maintenance of a powerful strategy could be produced by instruction that included opportunities to compare performance produced by the strategy with performance not mediated by the technique (and thus, less adequate performance). During Session 1, adults in five conditions were told about two strategies for learning vocabulary; one a little known but very powerful method (mnemonic-keyword method); and the other, familiar to adults but not very powerful, rote repetition. One group was only told about these methods; a second also practiced the keyword method, but had no opportunity to compare keyword-mediated performance with other performance. In the remaining three instructed conditions, subjects were given comparison opportunities. They were permitted to compare keyword-mediated definition learning either with repetition-mediated performance, with uninstructed vocabulary learning, or with both. Session 2 (2-week-delayed) performances in these five instructed conditions were compared to performance in a control condition that received no Session 1 instruction. Statistically significant keyword-method maintenance was obtained only when there were Session 1 comparison opportunities, presumably because strategy potency was more evident in these conditions