Adult age differences in monitoring of practical problem-solving performance

A scale measuring practical problem-solving ability in adulthood was developed in a preliminary study and demonstrated to have satisfactory psychometric properties for research purposes: there was satisfactory internal consistency, discriminant validity, and there were significant relationships between performance and a measure of subjective experience. The purpose of the main investigation was to examine performance awareness on this measure of practical problem-solving ability. Younger (19-40 years) and older (59-84 years) subjects estimated performance either before and after taking the test (prediction/postdiction condition) or only after exposure to the materials (postdiction only). When the unsigned discrepancies between actual and expected performances were considered, there were no age differences in performance awareness of either time of estimation, but neither age group demonstrated improved accuracy from prediction to postdiction. When the directions of estimation errors were considered, older adults were significantly more likely to overestimate performance at both times of estimation compared to younger adults, who underestimated performance. Importantly, the same pattern of results was obtained with subjects who estimated only after taking the test and those who made predictions and postdictions.