Putting the Comprehension in Metacomprehension

The purpose of the present piece is to integrate some current theories of text comprehension with the body of work on metacomprehension, and especially the calibration of comprehension monitoring. This paper explores some important methodological and conceptual issues, inspired by current theories in the text comprehension literature, which suggest that the nature of the texts used for metacomprehension studies may be a critical, and currently unrecognized, factor that should be considered. First, we need to re-examine what we mean by “comprehension,” and how we should measure it. There are important differences between memory for text and comprehension of text that need to be considered. Second, to fully deal with these concerns, we need to pay more attention to the kinds of expository text that are being used, the different ways that readers may understand these texts, and how readers may interpret the concept of “understanding” as they make their judgments

Individual Differences, Rereading, and Self-Explanation: Concurrent Processing and Cue Validity as Constraints on Metacomprehension Accuracy

The typical finding of metacomprehension studies is that accuracy in monitoring one’s own level of understanding is quite poor. In the present experiments, monitoring accuracy was constrained by individual differences in both reading comprehension ability and working memory capacity (WMC), but rereading particularly benefited low-ability and low-WMC readers, effectively eliminating the relationship between monitoring accuracy and these reader characteristics. In addition, introducing a self-explanation reading strategy improved the accuracy of all the readers above mere rereading. The observed interaction between individual differences and rereading is interpreted in terms of concurrent-processing constraints involved in monitoring while text is processed, whereas the more general self-explanation effect is interpreted in terms of accessibility of valid, performance-predicting cues

Understanding the Delayed-Keyword Effect on Metacomprehension Accuracy

The typical finding from research on metacomprehension is that accuracy is quite low. However, recent studies have shown robust accuracy improvements when judgments follow certain generation tasks (summarizing or keyword listing), but only when these tasks are performed at a delay rather than immediately after reading (Thiede & Anderson, 2003; Thiede, Anderson & Therriault, 2003). The delayed and immediate conditions in these past studies confounded the delay between reading and generation tasks with other task lags, such as the lag between multiple generation tasks and the lag between generation tasks and judgments. The first two experiments disentangle these confounded manipulations and provide clear evidence that the delay between reading and keyword generation is the only lag critical to improving metacomprehension accuracy. The third and fourth experiments show that not all delayed tasks will produce improvements and suggest that delayed generative tasks provide diagnostic cues about comprehension that are necessary for improving metacomprehension accuracy

Comparison of cattail (Typha sp.) occurrence on a photo-interpreted map versus a satellite data map

A comparison between a 1985 photo-interpreted vegetation map and a vegetation map made from classified 1987 satellite data of the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge showed that 81% of samples taken in areas occupied by cattail (Typha sp.) on the photo-interpreted map corresponded with cattail on the satellite data map.(5 page document

Poor Metacomprehension Accuracy as a Result of Inappropriate Cue Use

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

Elementary School Experience with Comprehension Testing May Influence Metacomprehension Accuracy Among Seventh and Eighth Graders

We explored whether exposure to different kinds of comprehension tests during elementary years influenced metacomprehension accuracy among 7th and 8th graders. This research was conducted in a kindergarten through eighth grade charter school with an expeditionary learning curriculum. In literacy instruction, teachers emphasize reading for meaning and inference building, and they regularly assess deep comprehension with summarization, discussion, dialogic reasoning and prediction activities throughout the elementary years. The school recently expanded, doubling enrollments in 7th and 8th grades. Thus, approximately half of the students had long-term exposure to the curriculum and the other half did not. In Study 1, metacomprehension accuracy using the standard relative accuracy paradigm was significantly better for long-time students than for newcomers. In Study 2, all students engaged in delayed-keyword generation before judging their comprehension of texts. Metacomprehension accuracy was again significantly better for long-time students than for newcomers. Further, the superior monitoring accuracy led to more effective regulation of study, as seen in better decisions about which texts to restudy, that led, in turn, better comprehension. The results suggest the importance of early exposure to comprehension tests for developing skills in comprehension monitoring and self-regulated learning

Editor\u27s Introduction

As noted in the last bibliography of Human Problem Solving compiled by Joachim Funke and reported in the Journal of Problem Solving in 2013, problem solving as a concept and as a research issue has been gaining more interest than ever before. Now in 2016, we can see that publications on the topic further increased to around 1,800 per year in both 2013 and 2014. The papers in this special issue come from two areas of problem solving research, mathematical and creative problem solving, which represent a good part of this growth trend. With this special issue, the journal has closed its first decade. We look forward to another decade of growth in research on important questions about the mental mechanisms underlying this cognitive ability

Are Experts Unbiased? Effects of Knowledge and Attitude on Memory for Text

Objects with varying amounts of domain knowledge read texts on two controvCTsial issues: whether the U S should participate in the Persian Gulf War and w^iether abortion should be legal. Each text contained ten arguments for each side of the issue. Subjects with the most knowledge about the topics recalled rou^ly equal numbers of arguments from either side of the issue, while subjects with less knowledge recalled more arguments for the side they agreed with. The results were replicated with a third topic, the OJ Simpson case. The results of both experiments suggest that recall bias due to attitude may be eUminated by the possession of domain knowledge. ImpUcations for instructional programs using expert models are discussed