Feeling-of-Knowing Judgment and Self-Regulation of Learning.
Héfer Bembenutty · 2009
Feeling-of-knowing refers to individuals' judgments about their degree of accuracy for recognizing or knowing a task or answer and predicting one's knowledge (Dunlosky & Bjork, 2008; Finn & Metcalfe, 2008; Nelson & Leonesio, 1988; Pintrich, Wolters, & Baxter, 2000). Feeling-of-knowing judgment is part of metacognition (Nelson & Leonesio 1988). Researchers report that feeling-of-knowing predicts later recall of words, relearning material, and recalling information (Dunlosky & Bjork, 2008; Hart, 1965: Metcalfe, & Kornell, 2005, 2007; Nelson & Leonesio, 1988; Pintrich, Wolters, & Baxter, 2000; Schwartz & Metcalfe, 1992; Swerts & Krahmer, 2005). To perform complex cognitive tasks, learners must maintain access to and retrieve large amounts of information that is stored in their long-term memory. For example, learners asked to name the swimming player who had an unprecedented achievement by winning eight gold medals representing the Unit ed States of America during the Olympic Games in Beijing would need to know the name Michael Phelps. In addition, learners would need to know what the Olympic Games are and something about Beijing as well. However, in addition to knowing that information, a learner would need to be able to retrieve the information from his or her long-term memory in order to answer the question. Often, learners know the information and feel that they know it, but sometimes they are unable to retrieve it from their long-term memory despite the feeling that the information is known. In many instances, learners will need further contextual information to coherently integrate information presented in a question with their previous experience or knowledge, such as that swimming is a different game from tennis. Furthermore, the individual must know how to access that information and accurately judge any knowing the information. Not all known information is available in the short-term memory at the time of an examination. Nevertheless, individuals can judge with some degree of accuracy whether the information is known. Purpose of this Paper In this paper, the implications of feeling-of-knowing judgment for learners' academic performance are considered. The first goal is to evaluate the empirical support for the premise that feeling-of-knowing judgment is a significant predictor of correct identification of that information at a later time. This premise is widespread in the cognitive psychology literature (Dunlosky & Bjork, 2008; Metcalfe, & Kornell, 2005, 2007; Nelson & Leonesio, 1988, Pintrich, Wolters, & Baxter, 2000). Indeed, it serves as the explicit rationale for attempts to delineate the essence of metacognitive awareness. The second goal is to examine whether there is a link between feeling-of-knowing judgment and learners' use of self-regulated learning processes. In this paper, it is proposed that a general account of feeling-of-knowing judgment is mediated by the learners' ability to use self-regulatory strategies. This paper is organized in three different sections. In the first section, the concept of feeling-of-knowing is introduced under the umbrella of metacognition and metamemory to set the historical and ecological basis of feeling-of-knowing. In the second section, the current issues related to feeling-of-knowing such as its definitions and diverse measures are discussed. Particular attention is placed on other constructs known to be associated to feeling-of-knowing such as the ease-of-learning judgment and the labor-in-vain effect. The third section examines current literature from the social learning theory on self-regulation that is linked to feeling-of-knowing. Feeling-of-Knowing and Metacognition Emerging in the mid-1960s, research by Flavell (Flavell et al., 1968) embarked on the examination of young children's inability to think about their own thinking and memory processes in any meaningful way. …