Practicing metacognition through the use of repeated posttest predictions

Development of metacognitive skills is one method to increase self-awareness of pharmacy students. This study sought to assess students' posttest prediction (postdiction) of performance on a series of multiple-choice examinations to determine if feedback regarding predicted and actual performance could improve personal predictive abilities over time.

While there was a statistically significant change in the students' predictive abilities from examination one to examination three, lower scores in examination two disrupted the trend we had hoped to see. When broken down by overall course score, the highest performing students rarely overestimated their score (5-21% of the time, depending on examination), while the lowest performing students were more varied (22-56% over prediction, depending on examination).

This study used a novel assessment method of postdictions without additional data points such as predictions or grade point average (GPA), which could have helped confirm the value of the method. Additionally, we realized assessing the impact of the qualitative feedback students received could elucidate why and recommend this for future studies.

While students were generally poor predictors of their performance, repeated use of this skill helped them to reduce the number of over predictions made by the end of the course. This change was greatest for the lowest performing students indicating that they may receive more benefit from this exercise than higher performing students. This method of using postdictions adds to the collection of tools that can be used to measure student metacognitive skills.