Purpose: To understand complex expository text, readers often engage in metacognitive comprehension monitoring. Metacognitive monitoring is assumed to rely on basic cognitive abilities (working memory updating, short-term memory, verbal intelligence). These abilities decrease in later adulthood. We thus compared younger and older adults in their…

It is acknowledged the need for interventions to improve reading comprehension and its cognitive underpinnings, such as executive functions. The present study implemented a computerized cognitive training for enhancing reading comprehension in primary school children through EF activities embedded in text comprehension exercises. 263 third and…

When learning from texts, it is not only important that learners remember and comprehend the content, but also that they monitor and accurately judge their memory and comprehension so as to efficiently regulate their learning. In the present experiment with 51 university students, we investigated to what extent headings within texts promote these…

For successful learning, students need to evaluate their learning status relative to their learning goals and regulate their study in response to such monitoring. The present study investigated whether making metacognitive judgments on previously studied text would enhance the learning of that studied (backward effect) and newly studied text…

Recently, several studies have suggested that metacognition emerges early in infancy and toddlerhood. However, to date, the developmental trajectory of these early metacognitive monitoring and control processes and their influence on children's later memory functioning remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to longitudinally document…

According to an aptitude-treatment interaction experiment (Lehmann et al., "Metacognition and Learning, 11," 89-105, 2016, N = 47, published in "Metacognition and Learning"), perceptually disfluent texts facilitated retention and comprehension performance (but not transfer performance) only for learners with higher working…

This study aims to understand individual differences between children in metacognitive monitoring and control processes and the developmental trajectories of metacognition over one year. Three indicators of procedural metacognition were used: monitoring accuracy (discrimination of confidence judgments between correct and incorrect test responses),…

Strategy instruction during reading can aid metacomprehension producing higher judgement of learning (JOL) and prediction of performance (POP). In contrast, verbal working memory (WM) limitations cause metacognitive deficits and lengthy expository texts impose greater cognitive load. However, impact of cognitive factors and reading lengthy…

It is frequently assumed that learner characteristics (e.g., reading skill, self-perceptions, optimism) account for overestimations of text comprehension, which threaten learning success. However, previous findings are heterogenous. To circumvent a key problem of previous research, we considered cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, and…

The inconsistency task is used to measure metacognitive monitoring in text comprehension via online (reading time) and offline measures (number of detected inconsistencies). Few studies have examined stability in task performance and interindividual differences. We addressed these issues with adolescents (N = 341) in Grades 6/7 (Mage =…

A set of four experiments assessed the effects of establishing a comprehension-test expectancy (in contrast to a memory-test expectancy) on relative metacomprehension accuracy. Typically readers show poor relative metacomprehension accuracy while learning from text (i.e., they are unable to discriminate topics they have understood well from topics…

A set of four experiments assessed the effects of establishing a comprehension-test expectancy (in contrast to a memory-test expectancy) on relative metacomprehension accuracy. Typically readers show poor relative metacomprehension accuracy while learning from text (i.e., they are unable to discriminate topics they have understood well from topics…

Previous research has demonstrated that negated text (i.e., text that contains words such as "no," "not," or "never") presents considerable challenges to accurate reading comprehension. Furthermore, while metacomprehension judgements have indicated an awareness of this challenge on the readers' part, this insight has…

Working memory training has been shown to improve performance on untrained working memory tasks in typically developing children, at least when compared to non-adaptive training; however, there is little evidence that it improves academic outcomes. The lack of transfer to academic outcomes may be because children are only learning skills and…

This study examined the contribution of self-reported metacognitive regulation of reading to expository digital text comprehension in an e-learning environment, completed at home, instead of a class or lab. Two hundred and nineteen college students read and answered questions about two low previous knowledge hypertexts, and reported metacognitive…