Poor Metacomprehension Accuracy as a Result of Inappropriate Cue Use

Abstract

Two studies attempt to determine the causes of poor metacomprehension accuracy, and then, in turn, to identify interventions that circumvent these difficulties to support effective comprehension monitoring performance. The first study explored the cues that both at-risk and typical college readers use as a basis for their metacomprehension judgments in the context of a delayed summarization paradigm. Improvement was seen in all readers, but at-risk readers did not reach the same level of metacomprehension accuracy as a sample of typical college readers.Further, while few readers reported using comprehension-related cues, more at-risk readers reported using surface-related cues as the basis for their judgments. To support the use of more predictive cues among the at-risk readers, a second study employed a concept map intervention, which was intended to make situation model-level representations more salient. Concept mapping improved both the comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy of at-risk readers.The results suggest that poor metacomprehension accuracy can result from a failure to use appropriate cues for monitoring judgments, and that especially less-able readers need interventions that direct them to predictive cues for comprehension.This is an electronic version of an article published in Discourse Processes, 47(4). Discourse Processes is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp. DOI: 10.1080/01638530902959927Metacomprehension and Cue Use 3 Poor Metacomprehension Accuracy as a Result of Inappropriate Cue UseLearning from text is a standard adjunct to classroom instruction. Students are assigned reading for homework, where they are expected to study and understand textbook chapters or other texts. Models of self-regulated learning (e.g., Dunlosky & Thiede, 1998;Metcalfe, 2002;Nelson & Narens, 1990) suggest that metacognitive monitoring and regulation of study play an important role in such learning. Thiede, Anderson, and Therriault (2003) showed that monitoring accuracy (operationalized as the intra-individual correlation between metacomprehension judgments and test performance computed across texts 1 ) influenced decisions about which texts to restudy, which in turn affected learning from text. In particular, they showed that participants who more accurately monitored their comprehension made better decisions about which texts to reread than did participants who less accurately monitored their comprehension. That is, for a group with higher monitoring accuracy, participants chose to restudy primarily the texts that they did not understand. Their mean proportion correct on initial comprehension tests for the texts they selected to reread was .27 versus .78 for the texts they did not select to reread. By contrast, groups with lower monitoring accuracy showed less of a preference. The mean proportion correct on tests for the texts they selected to reread was .43versus .53 for those they did not select to reread. The more effective regulation of study among the group with higher monitoring acc...

Elementary school experience with comprehension testing may influence metacomprehension accuracy among seventh and eighth graders.

“…According to the cue-utilization framework, the metacomprehension judgment may be based on a number of cues, such as how easily the text was processed during reading (Dunlosky & Rawson, 2005;Rawson & Dunlosky, 2002), how successfully the material had been retrieved at the time of the judgment (Baker & Dunlosky, 2006;Benjamin, Bjork, & Schwartz, 1998;Morris, 1990), the familiarity with the domain of the text (Glenberg & Epstein, 1987;Glenberg, Sanocki, Epstein & Morris, 1987;Griffin, Jee & Wiley, 2009;Maki & Serra, 1992), or global characteristics of texts such as length or difficulty (Weaver & Bryant, 1995). Metacomprehension accuracy will tend to increase as the cues that are used as a basis for comprehension judgments more highly correlate with performance on a test of comprehension (for empirical evidence linking metacomprehension accuracy and judgment cue basis, see Thiede, Griffin, Wiley, & Anderson, 2010).…”

“…Given that even college-age students tend to expect test items that focus on memory for details (Thiede, Wiley, Griffin & Anderson, 2010), we hypothesized that 7 th grade students may also generally expect questions about reading assignments to assess memory of details rather than inferences that could be made from the text. We conducted a pilot study to test this hypothesis in a typical, public school setting.…”

“…For instance, Thiede, Griffin, Wiley, and Anderson (2010) had college students construct concept maps, which focused participants on the connections of ideas among the texts while reading. Constructing concept maps made cues related to the construction of a situation model more available which again helped to align metacomprehension judgments with later comprehension tests.…”

Separating the Relevant From the Irrelevant: The Sri Learning Model

“…Some researches show that the techniques teachers employ to secure active participation of their students in conceptual mapping and self-explanation of the material significantly improves metacomprehension of the material (Thiede et al, 2003;Thiede et al, 2010). Traditional teaching in its predominantly teaching and didactical paradigm renders the student a receptive passive listener which needs only to memorize and repeat what the teacher and textbooks say.…”

“…According to researches, if the student asks questions on his own about the topic being learned and answers them or if we form groups which will answer these questions, this will significantly improve metacognitive understanding and memorizing the material (Griffin, Wiley, & Thiede, 2008;Thiede, Anderson, & Therriault, 2003;Thiede, Griffin, Wiley, & Anderson, 2010). If the teacher applies methods which will direct the students to separate the relevant from the irrelevant, to ask and answer questions on their own, this will lead to accurate metaobservation of what is being learned (Bugg & McDaniel, 2012).…”