Two studies examined undergraduates' metacognitive awareness of six empirically-supported learning strategies. Study 1 results overall suggested an inability to predict the learning outcomes of educational scenarios describing the strategies of dual-coding, static-media presentations, low-interest extraneous details, testing, and spacing; there was, however, weak endorsement of the strategy of generating one's own study materials. In addition, an independent measure of metacognitive self-regulation was correlated with scenario performance. Study 2 demonstrated higher prediction accuracy for students who had received targeted instruction on applied memory topics in their psychology courses, and the best performance for those students directly exposed to the original empirical studies from which the scenarios were derived. In sum, this research suggests that undergraduates are largely unaware of several specific strategies that could benefit memory for course information; further, training in applied learning and memory topics has the potential to improve metacognitive judgments in these domains.

Numerous laboratory studies have demonstrated the long-term memory benefits of studying material in multiple distributed sessions as opposed to one massed session, given an identical amount of overall study time (i.e., the spacing effect). The current study goes beyond the laboratory to investigate whether undergraduates know about the advantage of spaced study, to what extent they use it in their own studying, and what factors influence its utilization.Participants (n = 285) completed a web-based survey responding to questions about their study behaviors, metacognitive awareness of spacing, the factors that contribute to the distribution of their study time, and independent measures of metacognitive self-regulation and use of elaboration study strategies. Results indicate that participants are aware of the benefits of spaced study and use it more than massing when they study, but do not implement it frequently.Students also endorsed several factors as important in the decision to distribute their study time.Further, level of metacognitive self-regulation and use of elaboration techniques were associated with the tendency to space material. Additional research is needed to examine student study habits in a naturalistic setting, and to explore effective ways to encourage behavior change through motivational and teaching techniques.

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Classroom demonstrations of empirically supported learning and memory strategies have the potential to boost students' knowledge about their own memory and convince them to change the way they approach memory tasks in and beyond the classroom. Students in a Human Learning and Memory course learned about the Method of Loci (MoL) mnemonic technique, then created and used their own Memory Palaces based on campus locations to remember a grocery list. Pretest to posttest improvements in memory for the serially recalled list, along with significant increases in self-reported use of MoL in daily life, suggest that this activity may improve knowledge and application of this powerful memory strategy. More broadly, these types of activities can strengthen undergraduates' metacognitive sophistication.

Two experiments examined age differences in mechanisms hypothesized to affect activation of item and temporal information in working memory. Activation levels were inferred from the ability to reject n-back lures matching items in different temporal positions. Information with the least decay had a performance advantage over less recent information, but was susceptible to the same temporal context errors found in all adjacent-to-target lure positions. Lures most distant from the current item showed a performance rebound. The pattern of increased magnitudes of age effects at adjacent-to-target positions indicated a reduction in older adults' working memory for temporal context information above and beyond item memory declines. Results overall support the emphasis on context information as a critical factor in working memory and cognitive aging.