Date of Award

2-17-2011

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Mark Grabe

Abstract

Metacognition can be defined as 'thinking about one's own thinking' or having an understanding of how one thinks about things and performs tasks and is positively related to academic success. Poor metacognitive skills can be improved through training (Thiede, Anderson, & Therriault, 2003); students learn metacognitive strategies more effectively when they are taught within the context of an actual course than when they are taught independently (e.g., Durkn & Main, 2002). Unfortunately, many new college students who are most in need of metacognitive improvement are enrolled in high-enrollment classes making it difficult, if not impossible, for the instructor to provide the individualized attention necessary to help these students improve metacognitively. Certitude is defined as "a subjective estimate of the likelihood of responding correctly" (Stock, Winston, Behrens, & Harper-Marinick, 1989) and is typically measured by asking participants to rate their confidence in the accuracy of an answer they have given to a question. Discrepancy between the student's confidence ("I think I got that question right") and the actual outcome (the question was answered incorrectly) indicates poor metacognition. By viewing feedback that illustrates this discrepancy, a student who may not otherwise realize this problem can become aware of it, thereby improving his/her metacognition. Pairing certitude experience with practice questions may provide a metacognitive tool that can be easily incorporated into high-enrollment college courses. College students in one section of an introductory psychology course viewed study questions that resembled those that would appear on a course exam. Students in another section of the course viewed the same questions but were asked to make a certitude judgment after each content question. It was hypothesized that students who gained experience making this accuracy assessment would show improved metacognition over time.Results indicated that metacognition did not improve over time as expected. However, students with poor metacognition who did not make accuracy assessments in the online study question system performed more poorly on a course exam than did students with poor metacognition who did have experience making accuracy assessments. This finding suggests potential benefits of providing accuracy assessment (certitude) experience to students with poor metacognition.

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