The Impact Of Metacognitive Monitoring And Feedback On The Choice Of Learning Strategies

Learning is the eternal theme in the world.Independent study has become much more important than ever,especially in such a technological age.Metacognitive monitoring is the focus in the resprocessearch of study.Learning strategies and feedback are also important in the learning.Distributed learning is one of the learning strategies,and there have been many studies have found that the effect of distributed learning is much better than that of massed learning.But in the past researches,most learners can’t realize the benefits of distributed learning,they are more willing to choose massed learning.The condition that internal feedback and external feedback can help learners choose the distributed learning is still in doubt.So the researches which study the relationship among metacognitive monitoring,feedback and choices of learning strategies can help us understand the process of how to choose the strategies.At the same time,it will help the learners in the independent learning choose better learning strategies.The subjects of the study are undergraduate and graduate students,and the experiment materials are words.And it includes three experiments.The first experiment focuses on the relationship of metacognitive monitoring and choices of learning strategies.The judgement of learning(JOL)is the metacognitive monitoring indicator.The experiment includes two recall tests,the first test includes distributed learning and massed learning with each 20 words.After the first recall test,subjects go to the learning of 20 words according to the learning strategy chosen by themselves.The results showed that the scores of distributed learning were significantly higher than those of massed learning(t(54)= 7.16,p<0.001,d= 0.51).The regression coefficients of JOL and JOL absolute accuracy to the choice of learning strategies were significant(p = 0.69,p = 0.025,R2 = 0.098;β = 0.64,p = 0.044,R2 = 0.082),and subjects with higher JOL are more likely to choose massed learning;subjects with the lower JOL absolute accuracy were more likely to choose distributed learning.The second experiment takes a two-factor between-subject design by 2(the presence of internal feedback:present vs no)*2(metacognitive monitoring level:high vs low)to explore the effects of internal feedback and metacognitive monitoring level on learning strategy choice.The results showed that the main effects of internal feedback and metacognitive monitoring level on learning strategy choice were not significant.However,for subjects with low metacognitive monitoring level,internal feedback could affect the choice of learning strategies(χ2 = 4.66,p=0.031),and the subjects in internal feedback group were more likely to choose distributed learning.Under the conditions of no internal feedback,the level of metacognitive monitoring had a marginal effect on the choice of learning strategies(x2 = 3.75,p = 0.053),and the subjects with high metacognitive monitoring level were more likely to choose distributed learning.The third experiment also takes a two-factor between-subject design by 2(the presence of external feedback:present vs no)*2(metacognitive monitoring level:high vs low)to explore the influence of external feedback and metacognitive monitoring level on learning strategy choice.The results showed that the main effect of external feedback on the choice of learning strategies was not significant.The main effect of metacognitive monitoring on the choice of learning strategies was significant(x2 = 3.90,p = 0.048),and the subjects with high metacognitive monitoring level were more likely to choose distributed learning.According to the three experiments’ results,we get the following conclusions:(1)Those learners who are more confident with their own memory are more willing to choose massed learning.(2)The level of metacognitive monitoring plays a significant role in the choice of learning strategies,learners with the low level of metacognitive monitoring are more willing to choose massed learning,and learners with the high level of metacognitive monitoring learners are more willing to choose distributed learning.(3)The internal feedback can promote low metacognitive monitoring level learners choose more distributed learning as their way of learning.(4)The internal feedback has more significant impact on choosing learning strategies than external feedback.