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Measuring strategic processing: comparing task-specific self-reports to traces

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Abstract

This research compares the strategic processing reported on right after the completion of a reading task with physical traces of the same strategies that were found in the study materials. In addition, both task-specific self-reports and traces of strategies were used to predict performance, both in the task context where the strategy data were generated and in another context. Using a sample of 177 Norwegian tenth-grade students, a quite close correspondence was found between learners’ task-specific self-reports about strategies and the strategies traced in the study materials. Moreover, both self-reports and traces of strategies predicted performance not only on the specific reading task but also beyond that context, on the PISA literacy tests. In both contexts, however, strategy data that traced what learners actually did when working on the reading task seemed to predict performance better than did task-specific self-reports.

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  1. Institute for Educational Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Ivar Bråten

  2. Department of Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7491, Trondheim, Norway

    Marit S. Samuelstuen

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  1. Ivar Bråten
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Authors are listed alphabetically; Bråten and Samuelstuen contributed equally to this article.

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Bråten, I., Samuelstuen, M.S. Measuring strategic processing: comparing task-specific self-reports to traces. Metacognition Learning 2, 1–20 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-007-9004-y

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