Metacognitive benefits of taking a test for children and young adolescents

The main purposes of this study were (a) to isolate monitoring of test performance from other forms of monitoring and (b) to determine the effect of taking a test on expectations about future performance. Children in grades 1-2, 4-5, and 7-8 were administered a vocabulary test. They either predicted their performance on tests like the one that was administered before taking the test, predicted after taking the test, or made postdictions about performance on the present test. There was unambiguous improvement in the accuracy of after-test predictions and postdictions compared to before-test predictions at grades 7-8 only. Although all age groups discriminated hard from easy items as they were doing them, such discrimination increased with age. In general, there were few sex differences, although whenever statistically significant sex differences in confidence were detected, boys tended to be more confident than girls. These results are consistent with claims that developmental changes in self-regulation could be tied to developmental changes in monitoring of performance and making predictions about future performance based on past performance.