Metacognition and control of study choice in children

Middle childhood may be crucial for the development of metacognitive monitoring and study control processes. The first three experiments, using different materials, showed that Grade 3 and Grade 5 children exhibited excellent metacognitive resolution when asked to make delayed judgments of learning (JOLs, using an analogue scale) or binary judgments of knowing (JOKs, ‘know’ or ‘don’t know’) without the target being present. (The delayed method used here also results in excellent metacognitive resolution in adults). In three subsequent experiments after making JOLs the children were asked to choose which items they would like to restudy to optimize learning. We then either honored or dishonored the children’s restudy choices, and tested their memory performance. In Experiment 4, honoring the children’s choices made no difference to final recall performance. Experiments 5 and 6 showed that when the computer, rather than the children, chose the items for restudy based on theoretical constraints proposed by the Region of Proximal Learning model of study time allocation, the children’s recall performance improved. In all three experiments, Grade 3 children’s choices were random. Whereas the Grade 5 children showed some indication of a metacognitively guided strategy of choosing the lowest JOL items for study, it did not, consistently, improve performance. Apparently, accurate metacognitive monitoring is largely in place in middle childhood, but is not yet converted into effective implementation strategies. This dissociation between metaknowledge and its implementation in choice behavior needs to be taken into account by educators aiming to design interventions to enhance learning in children at this age.