Abstract
A 2 × 2 quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the impact of extrinsic incentives and reflection on students’ calibration of exam performance. We further examined the relationships among attributional style, performance, and calibration judgments. Participants were 137 college students enrolled in an educational psychology course. Results differed as a function of exam performance. Higher-performing students were very accurate in their calibration and did not show significant improvements across a semester-length course. Attributional style did not significantly contribute to their calibration judgments. Lower-performing students, however, were less accurate in their calibration, and students in the incentives condition showed significant increases in calibration. Beyond exam scores, attributional style constructs were significant predictors of calibration judgments for these students. The constructs targeting study and social variables accounted for most of the additional explained variance. The qualitative data also revealed differences by performance level in open-ended explanations for calibration judgments.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arkes, H. R., Christensen, C., Lai, C., & Blumer, C. (1987). Two methods of reducing overconfidence. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 39, 133–134.
Barnett, J. E., & Hixon, J. E. (1997). Effects of grade level and subject on student test score predictions. The Journal of Educational Research, 90, 170–174.
Bar-Tal, D., & Bar-Zohar, Y. (1977). The relationship between perception of locus of control and academic achievement. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 2, 181–199.
Bol, L., & Hacker, D. J. (2001). A comparison of the effects of practice tests and traditional review on performance and calibration. The Journal of Experimental Education, 69, 133–151.
Bol, L., Hacker, D. J., O’Shea, P., & Allen, D. (2005). The influence of overt practice, achievement level, and explanatory style on calibration accuracy and performance. The Journal of Experimental Education, 73, 269–290.
Borkowski, J. G., Carr, M., Rellinger, E., & Pressley, M. (1990). Self-regulated cognition: Interdependence of metacognition, attributions, and self-esteem. In B. F. Jones, & L. Idol (Eds.), Dimensions of thinking and cognitive instruction (pp. 53–92). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Boss, M. W., & Taylor, M. C. (1989). The relationship between locus of control and academic level and sex of secondary students. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 14, 315–322.
Caravalho, F., Moisses, K., & Yuzawa, M. (2001). The effects of social cues on the confidence judgments mediated by knowledge and self-regulation of cognition. The Journal of Experimental Education, 69, 325–343.
Dembo, M. H., & Jakubowski, T. G. (2003). The influence of self-protective perceptions on the accuracy of test prediction. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, April.
Dunning, D., Heath, C., & Suls, J. M. (2004). Flawed self-assessment: Implications for health, education, and the workplace. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 69–106.
Dunning, D., Johnson, K., Ehrlinger, J., & Kruger, J. (2003). Why people fail to recognize their own incompetence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 83–86.
Dweck, C. S. (1986). Motivational processes affecting learning. American Psychologist, 41, 1040–1048.
Eccles, J., Midgley, C., & Adler, T. (1984). Grade-related changes in the school environment: Effects on achievement motivation. In J. Nicholls (Ed.), Advances in motivation and achievement (vol. 3, pp. 283–331). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
Flannelly, L. T. (2001). Using feedback to reduce students’ judgment bias on test questions. Journal of Nursing Education, 40, 10–16.
Glenberg, A. M., Wilkinson, A. C., & Epstein, W. (1982). The illusion of knowing: Failure in the self-assessment of comprehension. Memory & Cognition, 10, 597–602.
Graham, S., & Weiner, B. (1996). Theories and principles of motivation. In D. C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 63–84). New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.
Hacker, D. J., & Bol, L. (2004). Metacognitive theory: Considering the social–cognitive influences. In D. M. McInerney, & S. Van Etten (Eds.), Big theories revisited (pp. 275–297). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
Hacker, D. J., Bol, L., Horgan, D. D., & Rakow, E. A. (2000). Test prediction and performance in a classroom context. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 160–170.
Jost, J. T., Kruglanski, A. W., & Nelson, T. O. (1998). Social metacognition: An expansionist review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 137–154.
Karabenick, S. A. (1996). Social influences on metacognition: Effects of colearner questioning on comprehension monitoring. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 689–703.
Keren, G. (1991). Calilbration and probability judgments: Conceptual and methodological issues. Acta Psychologica, 77, 217–273.
Koriat, A. (1993). How do we know that we know? The accessibility model of the feeling of knowing. Psychological Review, 100, 609–639.
Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1121–1134.
Lichtenstein, S., Fischhoff, B., & Phillips, L. D. (1982). Calibration of probabilities: The state of the art to 1980. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 306–334). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lin, L. L., & Zabrucky, K. M. (1998). Calibration of comprehension: Research and implications for education and instruction. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 23, 345–391.
Lundeberg, M. A., & Fox, P. W. (1991). Do laboratory findings on text expectancy generalize to classroom outcomes? Review of Educational Research, 61, 94–106.
McCormick, C. B. (2003). Metacognition and learning. In W. M. Reynolds & G. E. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of psychology: Educational psychology (vol. 7). New York: Wiley.
Neisser, U. (1976). Cognition and reality: Principles and implications of cognitive psychology. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.
Nietfeld, J. L., Cao, L., & Osborne, J. W. (2005). Metacognitive monitoring accuracy and student performance in the postsecondary classroom. The Journal of Experimental Education, 74, 7–28.
Nietfeld, J. L., Cao, L., & Osborne, J. W. (2006). The effect of distributed monitoring exercises and feedback on performance, monitoring accuracy, and self-efficacy. Metacognition and Learning, 1, 159–179.
Nietfeld, J. L., & Schraw, G. (2002). The effect of knowledge and strategy training on monitoring accuracy. The Journal of Educational Research, 95, 131–142.
Parducci, A., & Sarris, V. (1984). Perspectives in psychological experimentations: Toward the year 2000. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Puncochar, J. M., & Fox, P. W. (2004). Confidence in individual and group decision making: When “two heads are worse than one”. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, 582–591.
Reivich, K., & Gillham, J. (2003). Learned optimism: The measure of explanatory style. In S.J. Lopez & C. R. Snyder (Eds.), Positive psychological assessment (pp. 57–74). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Schraw, G., Potenza, M. T., & Nebelsick-Gullet, L. (1993). Constraints on the calibration of performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 18, 455–463.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1991). Learned optimism. New York: Alfred Knopf.
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (1989). Using multivariate statistics. New York: Harper Collins.
Tuckman, B. W. (1996). The relative effectiveness of incentive motivation and prescribed learning strategy in improving college students’ course performance. Journal of Experimental Education, 64, 197–210.
Winne, P. H. (2004). Students’ calibration of knowledge and learning processes: Implications for designing powerful software learning environments. International Journal of Educational Research, 41, 466–488.
Winne, P. H., & Jamieson-Noel, D. (2002). Exploring students’ calibration of self reports about study tactics and achievement. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27, 551–572.
Yates, J. F. (1990). Judgment and decision making. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hacker, D.J., Bol, L. & Bahbahani, K. Explaining calibration accuracy in classroom contexts: the effects of incentives, reflection, and explanatory style. Metacognition Learning 3, 101–121 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-008-9021-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-008-9021-5