Eva Susanne Fritzsche

Unskilled but subjectively aware: Metacognitive monitoring ability and respective awareness in low-performing students

Two studies were conducted to further examine the unskilled-and-unaware effect and to test whether low-performing students are indeed unaware of their (expected) lower metacognitive monitoring abilities. Postdicted judgments of performance and second-order judgments (SOJs) were solicited to test students’ metacognitive awareness. Given that global and local judgments tend to differ (the confidence–frequency effect), we investigated whether students’ (un)awareness pertains to both types of judgments. A first study focusing on global judgments was conducted in a regular exam setting with 196 undergraduate education students. A second study with 115 undergraduate education students examined both global and local judgments. Local judgments were analyzed on an average level and according to different signal detection theory categories (hits, correct rejections, misses, and false alarms). In both studies, students were grouped in four performance quartiles. The results showed that low-performing students highly overestimated their performance (they were functionally overconfident). However, their SOJs indicated that they were less confident in their judgments than the other students, and thus seemed to be aware of their low ability to estimate their own performance (they were not subjectively overconfident). This was observed for global as well as for averaged local SOJs. Moreover, an analysis of the local judgments revealed that students’ SOJs varied depending not only on whether their judgments were accurate but also on whether or not they thought they knew the answer to an item. In sum, SOJs provide valuable information about students’ metacognitive awareness.

Students’ confidence in their performance judgements: a comparison of different response scales

We report results of two studies on metacognitive accuracy with undergraduate education students. Participating students were asked to judge their personal performance in a multiple-choice exam as well as to state their confidence in their performance judgement (second-order judgement [SOJ]). In each study, we compared four conditions that differed in the type of the presented 5-point confidence scale for SOJs. In Study 1, four bipolar scales with different labels were applied; in Study 2, unipolar and bipolar scales were implemented. The results of Study 1 with N = 420 students show that undergraduates on average provided accurate performance estimations. However, students were not aware of their judgement accuracy, shown by a low fit of SOJ and judgement accuracy. In addition, the type of provided scale significantly influenced the SOJs. Study 2 with N = 348 students replicated the findings of the first study and gave further insight into the effects of uni- vs. bipolar response scales.