Igor Bajšanski

Metacognitive Strategies and Reading Comprehension in Elementary-School Students.

The aim of this study was to explore comprehension monitoring and perceived use of reading strategies as factors of reading comprehension. Participants were elementary school students from the fifth to the eighth grade. Error correction and text sensitivity tasks from the Metacomprehension test (Pazzaglia, De Beni, & Cristante, 1994). and the cloze-task were used as measures of comprehension monitoring during reading. A Strategic reading questionnaire (Kolić-Vehovec & Bajšanski, 2001b) was applied as a measure of perceived use of strategies during reading. Girls had better results than boys on text comprehension, all measures of comprehension monitoring, as well as on the Strategic reading questionnaire. Significant developmental improvements in comprehension monitoring occurred after the fifth grade and between the sixth and the eighth grade. A similar change was evident in reading comprehension. All measures of comprehension monitoring were significantly related to text comprehension in all age groups. However, perceived use of reading strategies was significantly related to reading comprehension only in eighth-grade students.RésuméLe but de cette étude a été d’explorer le monitorage de la compréhension et l’usage des stratégies de la lecture perçu en tant qu’éléments de la compréhension lors de la lecture. Les participants dans cette recherche étaient les élèves de la cinquième à la huitième année de l’école primaire. Comme mesures de monitorage de la compréhension lors de la lecture on a adopté les devoirs de la correction d’erreurs et les devoirs pour examiner la sensibilité envers le texte, pris du Test de la méta compréhension (Pazzaglia, De Beni, et Caccio, 1999). Le Questionnaire de la lecture stratégique (Kolić-Vehovec et Bajšanski, 2001b) a été adopté comme mesure de l’usage des stratégies perçu lors de la lecture. Les filles ont eu de meilleurs résultats que les garçons sur les tests de la compréhension du texte, sur toutes les mesures du monitorage de la compréhension ainsi que sur le Questionnaire de la lecture stratégique. Des améliorations significatives dans le monitorage de la compréhension apparaissent après la cinquième année et entre la sixième et la huitième année. Des changements similaires sont visibles aussi dans la compréhension lors de la lecture. Toutes les mesures du monitorage de la compréhension étaient reliées de manière significative avec la compréhension du texte auprès de tous les groupes de différent âge. Toutefois, l’usage des stratégies perçu était significativement relié avec la compréhension de la lecture seulement chez les élèves de la huitième année.

Metacognition and Reading Comprehension: Age and Gender Differences

This chapter presents an overview of the authors’ work on age differences in children’s metacognition and reading comprehension during upper elementary and high school (9–17-years old) in Croatia, with an emphasis on gender differences. The focus was placed on upper elementary school as a crucial period for the development of metacognition in the domain of reading comprehension. In the first and the second part we draw on the literature supporting the developmental effects on metacognition and reading skill, as well as gender differences in reading comprehension. In the third part the results of several studies conducted by the authors are presented, followed by discussion on obtained age and gender differences. The findings indicated that the importance of metacognition for text comprehension intensified with age with a noticeable increase in this effect in the transition from lower to upper elementary school (after about 10 years of age). However, metacognition also played an important role in reading comprehension during high school. The pattern of age differences varied across components of metacognition. The effect of gender on metacognition in reading was mainly evident from the better performance of girls on the comprehension monitoring tasks. Finally, implications for education are discussed.

Concurrent Dynamics of Category Learning and Metacognitive Judgments

In two experiments, we examined the correspondence between the dynamics of metacognitive judgments and classification accuracy when participants were asked to learn category structures of different levels of complexity, i.e., to learn tasks of types I, II, and III according to Shepard et al. (1961). The stimuli were simple geometrical figures varying in the following three dimensions: color, shape, and size. In Experiment 1, we found moderate positive correlations between confidence and accuracy in task type II and weaker correlation in task type I and III. Moreover, the trend analysis in the backward learning curves revealed that there is a non-linear trend in accuracy for all three task types, but the same trend was observed in confidence for the task type I and II but not for task type III. In Experiment 2, we found that the feeling-of-warmth judgments (FOWs) showed moderate positive correlation with accuracy in all task types. Trend analysis revealed a similar non-linear component in accuracy and metacognitive judgments in task type II and III but not in task type I. Our results suggest that FOWs are a more sensitive measure of the progress of learning than confidence because FOWs capture global knowledge about the category structure, while confidence judgments are given at the level of an individual exemplar.

Confidence judgments in syllogistic reasoning: the role of consistency and response cardinality

ABSTRACT In two experiments, we examined the resolution of confidence judgments in syllogistic reasoning and their heuristic bases. Based on the assumptions of Koriats Self-Consistency Model of confidence, we expected the confidence judgments to be related to conclusion consensuality, reflecting the role of consistency as a heuristic cue to confidence. In Experiment 1, the participants evaluated 24 syllogisms with conclusions that varied with respect to validity and consensuality. In Experiment 2, the participants produced conclusions to 64 pairs of premises. The correlation between confidence and reasoning accuracy was low. In both experiments confidence was related to the consensuality of the responses. For consensually correct items, correlation between confidence and accuracy was positive; however, for consensually incorrect items it was negative. In Experiment 2, confidence was lower for syllogisms with higher response cardinality, or syllogisms that elicited a greater variety of conclusions.

The influence of rule availability and item similarity on metacognitive monitoring during categorisation

ABSTRACT In four experiments, we examined the sources of metacognitive judgments during the categorisation of new items after the learning of old items was completed. In the rule condition, the categorisation rule was explicitly given to the participants during learning, while in the no-rule condition participants relied on feedback to infer category membership. In the transfer phase, two types of novel items were used: good and bad transfer items. Transfer items also differed in the level of similarity to their training pairs. In the rule condition, all types of transfer items were classified with high accuracy and confidence. In the no-rule condition, a dissociation between accuracy and confidence was revealed. Good transfer items were classified more accurately than bad transfer items, whereas similar items were classified with higher confidence than dissimilar items. The obtained results suggest the utilisation of two potential cues for metacognitive judgments: declarative knowledge if the correct rule is explicitly available, and item similarity if it is difficult to infer the correct rule from feedback.