The Effect Of Value And Difficulty On Judgment Of Learning:the Mediating Role Of Study-time Allocation

Understanding the basis for judgments of learning (JOLs) is an important question because JOLs play a central part in people's resources allocation during learning. JOLs are typically influenced by perceived item difficulty. In the present study, three experiments were reported examining whether value can override the effects of item-difficulty on JOLs. Participants studied word pairs of varying difficulty in an equal-value condition and a 1-3-6 point value tradeoff condition. After the learning phase, participants made item-by-item JOLs. Results showed that value did not reverse the effect of item-difficulty on JOLs. Experiment 2 expanded the value gradient to also include a 1-6-12 condition and tracked participants' eye movements using an Eye-link ?. Results indicated that value still had no effect on JOLs in the 1-3-6 condition but did affect study time. Both JOLs and study time showed a value-directed trend in the 1-6-12 tradeoff condition. Experiment 3 examined whether the effects of item value on JOLs were differentially mediated by study-time allocation in an equal value condition and the two gradient value tradeoff conditions. Results showed that the effects of value on JOLs were fully mediated by learners' study-time allocation in the 1-3-6 tradeoff condition, but only partially mediated in the 1-6-12 tradeoff condition. The results complement the agenda-based regulation model (Ariel, Dunlosky, & Bailey,2009) and demonstrate that value has different effects on JOLs in different situations.