Harmful effects of preexisting inappropriate highlighting on reading comprehension and metacognitive accuracy

Previous research has shown that preexisting inappropriate highlighting of text could impair reading comprehension. In addition to replicating this effect, the authors investigated the impact of preexisting highlighting on measures of metacognition. In a 3 x 2 between-subjects factorial design, participants were 180 undergraduate college students randomly assigned to read passages that varied by type of highlighting (none, appropriate, or inappropriate) and text difficulty (low vs. high). Comprehension scores and metacognitive accuracy were impaired by inappropriate highlighting. Results show that when reading inappropriately highlighted passages, students' ratings of how well they had comprehended the text and how accurately they had answered comprehension questions were negatively correlated with their performance on a comprehension test. Inappropriate highlighting appeared to impair text comprehension and metacognitive accuracy.