7- and 8-Year-Olds’ Struggle With Monitoring

Abstract: An often-replicated finding in metacognition research is that children overestimate their performance. To date, only a few studies have investigated the possible effects of item-specific feedback on metacognitive monitoring in young children. This study examined whether first-graders benefit from feedback to improve metacognitive monitoring discrimination when completing a paired-associates task for consistency. Over six sessions, N = 112 children evaluated whether they solved tasks correctly or not and gave item-specific confidence judgments. One group obtained only performance feedback; the other group received additional feedback on whether their performance matched their monitoring judgments. Results revealed that children could adequately discriminate between correct and incorrect answers in their confidence judgments. However, neither type of feedback improved metacognitive monitoring discrimination. We discuss the results against the theoretical background of Efklides’ self-regulation model and the cue utilization approach.