Gregory Schraw

Promoting general metacognitive awareness

I describe two aspects of metacognition, knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition, and how they are related to domain-specific knowledge and cognitive abilities. I argue that metacognitive knowledge is multidimensional, domain-general in nature, and teachable. Four instructional strategies are described for promoting the construction and acquisition of metacognitive awareness. These include promoting general awareness, improving self-knowledge and regulatory skills, and promoting learning environments that are conducive to the construction and use of metacognition.

Situational Interest: A Review of the Literature and Directions for Future Research

This paper reviews theoretical and empirical research on situational interest. A distinction is made between situational and personal interest. The former is spontaneous and context-specific, whereas the latter is enduring and context-general. We summarize historical perspectives and recent empirical findings on situational interest. Five emergent themes are identified that focus on relationships among situational interest, information processing, and affective engagement. We also discuss important topics for future research.

Increasing situational interest in the classroom.

This paper explores three ways to increase situational interest in the classroom. Situational interest is defined as temporary interest that arises spontaneously due to environmental factors such as task instructions or an engaging text. We review the history of interest research and summarize recent empirical work. We describe three ways to increase interest based on offering meaningful choices to students, selecting well-organized texts that promote interest, and providing the background knowledge needed to fully understand a topic. We conclude with six specific suggestions for increasing situational interest in the classroom.

Sources of Situational Interest.

We tested the relationship among sources of interest, perceived interest, and text recall. Sources of interest referred to factors (e.g., ease of comprehension) that evoke feelings of interest in a text. Perceived interest referred to the feeling of interest itself. A factor analysis revealed six different sources of interest. Of these, ease of comprehension and vividness explained 45% of the variance in perceived interest. In turn, perceived interest explained 18% of the variance in text recall; however, only ease of comprehension was related to recall once perceived interest was controlled statistically. Results suggested that different sources of interest affect perceived interest, which in turn, affects recall. Implications for text design and future research were discussed.

Self-efficacy beliefs in college statistics courses

We developed measures of current statistics self-efficacy (CSSE) and self-efficacy to learn statistics (SELS) to address whether statistics self-efficacy is related to statistics performance, and whether self-efficacy for statistics increases during an introductory statistics course. Both instruments yielded reliable, one-factor solutions that were related positively to each other and to two measures of statistics performance (i.e., specific statistics problems and overall course performance). The CSSE and SELS also were related positively to math self-efficacy and attitudes towards statistics, but related negatively to anxiety. Changes between two different testing occasions using the CSSE indicated that statistics self-efficacy increased almost two standard deviations over a 12-week instructional period.

Teachers' Epistemological World Views and Educational Practices

This article examines the implications of teachers’ beliefs about knowledge. We compare three epistemological world views we refer to as realist, contextualist, and relativist. An epistemological world view is a set of beliefs about knowledge and knowledge acquisition that influences the way teachers think and make important instructional decisions. We assume that different epistemological world views lead to different choices about curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. We describe ongoing research that examines the beliefs held by teachers, instructional practices, and the consistency between beliefs and classroom practices. We summarize findings from our research and discuss their implications for teacher training. We also consider environmental factors such as school culture and mandated standards that affect teachers’ beliefs. We relate our findings to implications for teacher training. We also identify directions for future research.

The Role of Choice and Interest in Reader Engagement.

The authors examined the effects of choice, topic interest, and situational interest on reading engagement, attitude, and learning. The outcomes were measured using scores on a multiple-choice test, a content essay, and a personal reaction essay, and completion of an attitude checklist. Experiment 1 found a small negative effect for choice on the writing of content essays. Students in the control group, who were not given choice, wrote higher quality content essays. Situational interest had a positive effect on attitude. There were no effects for topic interest on any measure. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 using a different text. Once again, situational interest had a positive effect on attitude. In addition, higher quality content essays were associated with situational interest. No effects were found for choice or topic interest. These findings support the claim that situational interest, rather than choice or topic interest, promotes engagement.

Promoting Argument-Counterargument Integration in Students' Writing

It is important, when writing opinion essays, for students to consider and integrate both arguments and counterarguments to develop a final conclusion. In this article, the authors explored the effect of criteria instruction and a graphic organizer to promote integration of arguments and counterarguments. The researchers randomly assigned 84 participants from an undergraduate educational psychology course to 1 of 4 conditions: training only, organizer only, combined, and control. The graphic organizer resulted in more refutations of counterarguments. However, criteria instruction resulted in better integration of argument and counterargument (with stronger rebuttals and more balanced reasoning). The authors discussed how the 2 interventions may have activated somewhat different argumentation schema in students.

Validation of a Measure of Learning and Performance Goal Orientations

This study investigated the psychometric properties of an instrument (i.e., the Goals Inventory) that measured learning and performance goal orientations. Test-retest reliability estimates for the learning and performance goal scales were r = .73 and r = .76, respectively. Internal consistency estimates were assessed using Cronbachs alpha. These values were .80 and .75, respectively. Convergent and divergent validity were evaluated by comparing the Goals Inventory to measures of test anxiety, hope, and attributions for success and failure. All the theoretically explicit predictions of Dweck and Leggetts model were supported. Suggestions are made for the use and interpretation of the Goals Inventorys two subscales and for future research.

Teacher Beliefs about Instructional Choice: A Phenomenological Study.

We interviewed 36 practicing teachers, using phenomenological methods to examine what, when, where, and to whom teachers offer choice. Teachers participated in pilot, interview, and member-check phases. Our final results focused on the following main points: (a) Teachers believe that choice promotes learning and motivation; (b) choice is used in a number of ways; (c) teachers have a variety of reasons for giving choices; and (d) teachers imposed limits on classroom choice based on (e) student age, ability, and prior knowledge and (f) teacher experience, efficacy, and management style.