Scaffolding self-regulated learning from causal-relations texts: Diagramming and self-assessment to improve metacomprehension accuracy?

Abstract

The accuracy of students’ relative comprehension judgments when reading texts is typically rather low. This has been ascribed to students grounding their comprehension judgments on cues that are not diagnostic of their actual comprehension level. Asking students to complete causal diagrams—a diagramming scaffold—before judging comprehension has proved effective in providing them with more diagnostic cues and thereby fostered metacomprehension accuracy and self-regulated learning. However, there is still room for improvement. We investigated experimentally whether adding the instruction to students to self-assess their causal diagrams: (1) would lead to more accurate judgments than comprehension judgments, (2) would boost their utilization of diagnostic diagram cues by increasing the saliency of those cues, and (3) would enhance metacomprehension accuracy. Participants (N = 427 secondary students in The Netherlands) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, namely (1) only diagram completion, (2) diagram completion plus diagram self-assessment, or a (3) filler task after reading (control). Self-assessments were more accurate than comprehension judgments, while both correlated strongly. However, no significant differences were found between diagramming conditions concerning diagram cue utilization and metacomprehension accuracy. Apparently, students self-assess their diagrams even without instruction to do so. Nonetheless, the effect of the diagramming scaffold for improving relative metacomprehension accuracy was replicated and extended to absolute metacomprehension accuracy.

Causal diagramming to improve students' monitoring accuracy and text comprehension: Effects of diagram standards and self‐scoring instructions

“…Students correctly identified 58.21% of the commission errors, 98.08% of the omission errors, and 74.18% of the correct boxes. These findings are comparable with the findings of Pijeira‐Díaz et al (2023), who found an accuracy of 79% for correct boxes, and of 96% for completed boxes (equivalent to the accuracy of empty boxes/omission errors).…”

“…In sum, we found no significant effects of self‐scoring on monitoring accuracy or text comprehension. This is similar to findings by Pijeira‐Díaz et al (2023); however, in their study, students had to self‐score their diagrams after (delayed) diagramming and did not receive a standard when doing so. Our students were provided with standards, which should give them more insight into the quality of their own diagrams and improve their self‐scoring (and thereby, provide a basis for more accurate monitoring judgements).…”

“…Thus, there is a need to optimize this intervention by drawing students' attention towards the diagnostic cues that can be inferred from the diagrams. A recent study (Pijeira‐Díaz et al, 2023) attempted to do so by implementing the same delayed diagramming condition as Van Loon et al (2014) and providing students with the instruction to self‐score their own diagrams. The self‐scoring instructions asked students to indicate the number of completed and correctly completed diagram boxes.…”

“…We test this using both a delayed and an immediate diagramming design. The effectiveness of diagramming for improving absolute (Pijeira‐Díaz et al, 2023) and relative (Van de Pol et al, 2019; Van Loon et al, 2014) monitoring accuracy has mostly been shown in delayed generative task designs (i.e., where first multiple texts are read, and then the generative tasks, JOLs, and tests about the texts are completed; Yang et al, 2023). An immediate design seems closer to what students do in educational settings, however, where they often need to decide whether they should restudy a text (or a certain paragraph of a text) directly after reading it.…”

Voorbij keuzestress

“…Naast het effect van designelementen in een leeromgeving op leerprestaties en motivatie, is er ook veel onderzoek naar wat het voor een student of lerende betekent om in een flexibele leeromgeving te studeren. Onderzoek dat zich op 'self-directed learning' (zie ook: Van Meeuwen et al, 2013), 'self-regulated learing' (zie ook: Pijeira-Díaz, Van de Pol, Channa, & De Bruin, 2023) en andere hogere orde vaardigheden (ook wel 21 ste -eeuwse vaardigheden), zoals 'information-problem solving' (zie ook: Brand-Gruwel & Stadtler, 2011) laat zien dat deze vaardigheden essentieel zijn als studenten de regie over het eigen leerproces geacht worden te nemen in hoog flexibele leeromgevingen (Brand-Gruwel, et al, 2014).…”