Early metacognitive abilities: The interplay of monitoring and control processes in 5- to 7-year-old children

Destan, Nesrin; Hembacher, Emily; Ghetti, Simona; Roebers, Claudia M. (2014). Early metacognitive abilities: The interplay of monitoring and control processes in 5- to 7-year-old children. Journal of experimental child psychology, 126, pp. 213-228. Elsevier 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.04.001

Text Destan_et al_2014.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (767kB) | Request a copy

The goal of the current investigation was to compare two monitoring processes (judgments of learning [JOLs] and confidence judgments [CJs]) and their corresponding control processes (allocation of study time and selection of answers to maximize accuracy, respectively) in 5- to 7-year-old children (N=101). Children learned the meaning of Japanese characters and provided JOLs after a study phase and CJs after a memory test. They were given the opportunity to control their learning in self-paced study phases, and to control their accuracy by placing correct answers into a treasure chest and incorrect answers into a trash can. All three age groups gave significantly higher CJs for correct compared to incorrect answers, with no age-related differences in the magnitude of this difference, suggesting robust metacognitive monitoring skills in children as young as 5. Furthermore, a link between JOLs and study time was found in the 6- and 7-year-olds, such that children spent more time
studying items with low JOLs compared to items with high JOLs. Also, 6- and 7-year-olds but not 5-year-olds spent more time studying difficult items compared to easier items. Moreover, age-related improvements were found in children's use of CJs to guide their selection of answers: although children as young as 5 placed their most confident answers in the treasure chest and least confident answers in the trash can, this pattern was more robust in older children. Overall, results support the view that some metacognitive judgments may be acted upon with greater ease than others among
young children.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

17 since deposited on 02 Jul 2014
0 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item