Why do learners ignore expected feedback in making metacognitive decisions about retrieval practice?

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Metacognition

Background:

• Learners often fail to utilize feedback effectively after retrieval practice.
• The potential of feedback as a restudy opportunity is frequently overlooked in metacognitive judgments.
• Existing research suggests feedback is often ignored due to brevity or social desirability concerns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate why learners disregard the restudy potential of feedback following retrieval practice.
• To determine if specific experimental conditions can elucidate the underappreciation of feedback's restudy function.
• To examine how framing feedback influences learners' study choices and strategy selection.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted involving word-pair learning with initial study, judgment of learning (JOL), and subsequent practice decisions.
• Experiment 1 manipulated practice conditions (relearning, retrieval without feedback, retrieval with feedback) and feedback duration.
• Experiment 2 altered instructions to frame feedback as either an answer presentation or a restudy opportunity.

Main Results:

• In Experiment 1, learners consistently preferred longer spacing intervals for relearning but not for retrieval practice with feedback.
• Despite extended feedback and covert practice, learners chose short intervals for difficult items and long intervals for easy items, indicating suboptimal strategy use.
• In Experiment 2, framing feedback as a restudy opportunity significantly altered learners' choices compared to framing it as answer presentation.

Conclusions:

• Learners do not spontaneously recognize or utilize the restudy function of feedback after retrieval practice.
• Metacognitive judgments and subsequent learning strategy choices are influenced by how feedback is presented.
• Explicitly alerting learners to the restudy nature of feedback is crucial for them to leverage it effectively.