Metacomprehension Monitoring And Control In Reading:the Influence Of Self-explanation,Working Memory,and Monitoring Accuracy

Reading comprehension can be affected by readers' ability of cognition and metacognition.Cognitive ability is reflected in text-processing and metacognitive ability is reflected in monitoring one's cognitive processes or in controlling one's studying behaviors.The effectiveness of controlling subsequent study is the basis for successful learning,so is accurate monitoring for effective control.Cognitive and metacognitive factors should be considered to investigate the relationships between metacognitive monitoring and control operations,and to investigate the impact that these operations have on actual performance.This study tries to answer three questions:(1)Can individual factor(working memory capacity,WMC)and strategic factor(self-explanation)influence metacomprehension accuracy?(2)Can the improved accuracy lead to adequate control then better performance?(3)Can individual cognitive ability(WMC)improve the final comprehension test after metacomprehension control?This study consists of two sub-studies.Study 1 is to investigate the influence of individual factor(WMC)on metacomprehension accuracy and to investigate whether using self-explanation strategy during reading can improve readers' monitoring accuracy.The purpose of study 1 is to answer the first research question.100 participants were assigned to a 2?2 between group design.The results demonstrated that participants with high WMC were more accurate than participants with low WMC when monitoring their comprehension.The results also demonstrated that when participants used self-explanation strategy,their metacomprehension accuracy was improved despite of their working memory capacity.The results of study 1 tell us that readers' working memory plays an important role in metacomprehension monitoring and using self-explanation strategy during reading can do better in monitoring.Study 2 is to investigate the relationship among monitoring accuracy,control validity,and test performance to answer the second research question,and to investigate the relationship between working memory capacity and test performance to answer the last research question.Because study 1 is the fundamental of study 2,the 2 studies recruited the same participants.All of them were assigned to a 2?2 between group design.The results demonstrated that participants whose monitoring were more accurate can make a valid decision when choosing rereading materials,but even doing so,their performances were not better than others whose monitoring were not as accurate as them.The results also demonstrated that participants with high WMC had better improvement after rereading than those with low WMC.Although the main effect of monitoring accuracy was not found for all participants,its positive effect on final comprehension test was found among participants with high WMC.The results of study 2 tell us that monitoring accuracy is important at the beginning of controlling one's study,but rereading is benefit from one's cognitive ability such as working memory capacity.The results confirmed that cognition and metacognition play an important role in reading comprehension.