Metacognitive Ratings on Cognitive Tasks: Task Difficulty and Effort Rating Differences in Children With ADHD and...

The role of metacognitive monitoring, or the subjective evaluation of performance during cognitive tasks, has been less well studied in children with ADHD compared to accuracy or performance on these tasks. Given that children with ADHD often display lower performance on cognitive tasks, particularly those involving executive attention and control, we examined whether metacognitive monitoring differed between children with ADHD and neurotypical children.

Eighty children aged 8-12 years (38 with ADHD, 42 neurotypical) completed a battery of cognitive tasks, including measures of intelligence, executive functioning (set-shifting and interference control), and an unstructured performance task (UPT). After each task, participants provided ratings of task difficulty and effort (how hard they tried).

Children with ADHD reported overall lower effort across cognitive tasks compared to neurotypical children; however, no group differences were found on task difficulty ratings. Metacognitive ratings of effort were significantly associated across performance tasks, suggesting that the degree of trying may reflect a trait-level factor. Ratings of task difficulty were generally weakly associated, suggesting ratings are influenced by task-specific factors. Metacognitive ratings of effort and task difficulty were not correlated, and these ratings were also distinct from task performance, with generally weak, non-significant associations. Metacognitive ratings of effort, not ratings of task difficulty, predict difficulties experienced by children with ADHD, beyond what is captured by performance on these tasks alone.