Foundational Studies 1-1-2005 Understanding the Delayed-Keyword Effect on Metacomprehension Accuracy

The typical finding from research on metacomprehens ion is that accuracy is quite low. However, recent studies have shown robust accuracy improvements when judgments follow certain generation tasks (summarizing or key word listing), but only when these tasks are performed at a delay rather than immediat ely fter reading (Thiede & Anderson, 2003; Thiede, Anderson & Therriault, 2003). The del ay d and immediate conditions in these past studies confounded the delay between rea ding nd generation tasks with other task lags, such as the lag between multiple generat ion tasks and the lag between generation tasks and judgments. The first two expe riments disentangle these confounded manipulations and provide clear evidence that the d elay between reading and keyword generation is the only lag critical to improving me tacomprehension accuracy. The third and fourth experiments show that not all delayed ta sks will produce improvements and suggest that delayed generative tasks provide diagn ostic cues about comprehension that are necessary for improving metacomprehension accur y. Models of self-regulated learning describe learning as a dynamic process in which a learner monitors progress toward a learning goal and uses this infor mation to regulate study (e.g., Metcalfe & Kornell, 2003; Nelson & Narens, 1990; Thiede & Dunlosky, 1999; Win ne & Hadwin, 1998). To make effective decisions about what to study or how long to study, the learn r must accurately monitor his or her learning so a to identify materials that will benefit most from rest udy. This link between accurate monitoring and lear ning has been empirically supported by recent research a cross a variety of domains (for a review, see Dunlo sky, Hertzog, Kennedy, & Thiede, in press). In the pres ent research, we focus in general on the accuracy o f people’s judgments of text learning—or metacomprehe nsion accuracy—and in particular on why the delayed generation of keywords improves accuracy. To motivate our current approach to investigating these issues, we first briefly review the standard method and modal outcome from the metacomprehension literature and then describe the d layed-keyword effect. To estimate the accuracy of people’s judgments of t ext learning, participants in a typical experiment would read multiple texts, which range from about 200 to 400 words each. Sometime after studying a given te xt, a participant predicts how well he or she will perf orm on a test over the content of the text. After all texts have been read and judged, the participant takes a t st of comprehension for each text. Metacomprehen sion accuracy is then estimated by correlating each part icipant’s judgments with his or her own test performance. Higher correlations are indicative of better accuracy. In general, metacomprehension accuracy is notoriously low, with mean accuracy aro und . 25 (for reviews, see Lin & Zabrucky, 1998; Mak i, 1998a). Recent studies have demonstrated dramatic i ncreases in metacomprehension accuracy when readers are asked to generate keywords (Thiede, And erson, & Therriault, 2003) or summaries (Thiede & Anderson, 2003) following a delay after reading the text. The source of the improvements due to delay ed keyword generation is explored in detail in the cur rent article.