Mariëtte H. van Loon

Why are children overconfident? Developmental differences in the implementation of accessibility cues when judging concept learning

Children are often overconfident when monitoring their learning, which is harmful for effective control and learning. The current study investigated childrens (N=167, age range 7-12years) judgments of learning (JOLs) when studying difficult concepts. The main aims were (a) to investigate how JOL accuracy is affected by accessibility cues and (b) to investigate developmental changes in implementing accessibility cues in JOLs. After studying different concepts, children were asked to generate novel sentences and then to make JOLs, select concepts for restudy, and take a final test. Overconfidence for incorrect and incomplete test responses was reduced for older children in comparison with younger children. For older age groups, generating a sentence led to greater overconfidence compared with not being able to generate a sentence, which indicates that older children relied more on accessibility cues when making JOLs. This pattern differed in the youngest age group; younger children were generally overconfident regardless of whether they had generated sentences or not. Overconfidence was disadvantageous for effective control of learning for all age groups. These findings imply that instructions to encourage children to avoid metacognitive illusions need to be adapted to childrens developmental stage.

AM Last Page: Avoiding Five Common Pitfalls of Experimental Research in Medical Education

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Belief in Corrective Feedback for Common Misconceptions: Implications for Knowledge Revision.

When correcting a common misconception, it seems likely that for corrective feedback to be effective, it needs to be believed. In 2 experiments, we assessed how participants’ belief in the validity of corrective feedback regarding individual misconceptions influenced knowledge revision. After responding about the validity of a set of misconceptions, participants received either a refutation alone (feedback that they were correct or incorrect) or a refutation accompanied by a supporting explanation, and then rated their belief in the corrective feedback. One week later, participants once again responded about the validity of the misconceptions. Across both experiments, participants corrected their misconceptions more often when they believed the corrective feedback. In addition, participants corrected their misconceptions more often when they had earlier received a refutation with a supporting explanation than when they had received the refutation only. This benefit of supportive explanations on knowledge revision was mediated by belief in the feedback, suggesting that explanations enhance the effectiveness of a correction by increasing belief in the feedback. These findings imply that successful correction of common misconceptions is likely enhanced by techniques that increase people’s belief in the validity of the corrective feedback.