Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, 80309-0347.
Boulder BioConsulting, Boulder, CO 80303.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2022 Sep;21(3):ar45. doi: 10.1187/cbe.21-12-0341.
Cognitive scientists have previously shown that students' perceptions of their learning and performance on assessments often do not match reality. This process of self-assessing performance is a component of metacognition, which also includes the practice of thinking about one's knowledge and identifying and implementing strategies to improve understanding. We used a mixed-methods approach to investigate the relationship between students' perceptions of their performance through grade predictions, their metacognitive reflections after receiving their grades, and their actual performance during a semester-long introductory genetics course. We found that, as a group, students do not display better predictive accuracy nor more metacognitive reflections over the semester. However, those who shift from overpredicting to matching or underpredicting also show improved performance. Higher performers are overall more likely to answer reflection questions than lower-performing peers. Although high-performing students are usually more metacognitive in their reflections, an increase in a student's frequency of metacognitive responses over time does not necessarily predict a grade increase. We illustrate several example trends in student reflections and suggest possible next steps for helping students implement better metacognitive regulation.
认知科学家此前已经表明，学生对自己在评估中的学习和表现的看法往往与现实不符。这种自我评估表现的过程是元认知的一个组成部分，元认知还包括思考自己的知识、识别和实施策略以提高理解能力。我们采用混合方法研究了学生通过成绩预测对自己表现的看法、收到成绩后的元认知反思以及在一个学期的入门遗传学课程中的实际表现之间的关系。我们发现，作为一个整体，学生在整个学期中并没有表现出更高的预测准确性或更多的元认知反思。然而，那些从过度预测转变为匹配或低估预测的学生也表现出了更好的成绩。总体而言，表现更好的学生比表现较差的学生更有可能回答反思问题。尽管高绩效学生在反思中通常更具元认知，但学生的元认知反应频率随时间的增加并不一定预示着成绩的提高。我们举例说明了学生反思中的几种趋势，并提出了帮助学生实施更好的元认知调节的可能步骤。
