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Improving students’ science text comprehension through metacognitive self-regulation when applying learning strategies

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Abstract

In three experiments, students were trained to use strategies for learning from scientific texts: text highlighting (Experiment 1), knowledge mapping (Experiment 2), and visualizing (Experiment 3). Each experiment compared a control condition, cognitive strategy training, and a combined cognitive strategy plus metacognitive self-regulation training with a specific focus on the quality of cognitive strategy application. After the training, students applied the learning strategies as they studied scientific texts. Across experiments, the results indicated that the self-regulation component of the training helped the students to overcome the lack of efficacy of the cognitive strategy only training when it was not effective by itself: The highlighting-only group was outperformed by the control group (d = −1.25), but the combined highlighting-plus-self-regulation training reduced this negative effect (d = −0.21). The mapping-only group performed as well as the control group (d = −0.12), but the combined mapping-plus-self-regulation group outperformed the control group (d = 0.76). The visualizing-only group outperformed the control group (d = 0.72) as did the combined visualizing-plus-self-regulation group (d = 0.78). Results suggest that cognitive learning strategies differ in their potential to induce deep versus surface processing of text contents. In addition, the metacognitive self-regulation component of the training enhanced students’ performance when the cognitive strategy training was not effective by itself.

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Author Note

The research presented in this article was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG; LE 645/6-2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Psychology in Education, Muenster University, Fliednerstr. 21, 48149, Muenster, Germany

    Claudia Leopold

  2. Duisburg-Essen University, Essen, Germany

    Detlev Leutner

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  1. Claudia Leopold
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  2. Detlev Leutner
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Correspondence to Claudia Leopold.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Two Example Items from the Multiple-Choice Comprehension Test

What is the chemical basis of hydrogen bonding?

  1. (a)

    The polar nature of the water molecule.

  2. (b)

    Attraction forces between electrons.

  3. (c)

    Attraction forces between ions.

  4. (d)

    The polar covalent bond of the water molecule.

What causes the density anomaly of water?

  1. (a)

    The ring structure of water molecules when water is freezing

  2. (b)

    The surface tension of water.

  3. (c)

    The open lattice structure of ice crystals.

  4. (d)

    Hollow spaces in ice crystals.

Appendix 2

Strategy and Self-Regulation Knowledge Items applied in the Highlighting Experiment

Strategy knowledge items

The most important information in a paragraph is… (a) underlined, (b) written down, (c) circled.

Figuring out which pieces of information are important when reading a text depends on … (a) mainly the reader, (b) the author and the reader, (c) mainly the author.

What is meant by functional side notes (side marks)? (a) abbreviations for text structure elements, (b) statements that are marked by form or color, (c) concepts that emphasize the main ideas of paragraphs, (d) signaling formulations in the text.

What text structure element is involved in or lies behind the following sentence? “Table salt and retail sugar are readily soluble, gypsum and silver chloride are not readily soluble.” (a) condition, (b) definition, (c) example, (d) observation.

Which approach is best for the identification of the main concepts and phrases according to the highlighting strategy? (a) following the argumentation of the author, (b) writing down particular text phrases, (c) relating the main concepts to each other.

What text structure element is involved in or lies behind the following sentence? “To increase the temperature of water, a lot of energy in the form of heat is necessary.” (a) property, (b) explanation, (c) definition, (d) condition.

What text structure element is involved in or lies behind the following sentence? “Solvents are compared with the solute available in surplus. When water is the solvent, we call this solution an aqueous solution.” (a) property, (b) summary, (c) definition, (d) observation.

Self-regulation knowledge items

How should you react to highlighting too much information? (a) write down the most important information, (b) reduce your highlighting, (c) erase your functional side notes.

In which step of the self-regulation strategy do you make a mental note of your progress? (a) first step, (b) second step, (c) third step, (d) fourth step.

What does the following statement refer to? “Did I really first read the paragraph without highlighting words and phrases?” (a) learning strategy, (b) self-regulation, (c) goal setting.

You are applying the self-regulation strategy while highlighting when you … (a) intend to highlight purposeful and sparingly, (b) ask yourself critically whether you have applied the highlighting strategy appropriately, (c) bring to mind the personal benefit of the topic.

When you ask yourself how you applied the highlighting strategy, which steps do you perform? (a) … you are self-observing your strategy application, (b) … you are self-assessing your strategy application, (c) … you are checking your self-assessment.

In the step in which you react, you think about … (a) which steps of the highlighting strategy you have already applied, (b) whether you should further revise your highlighting, (c) whether you have highlighted the main ideas.

Please assign which of the self-regulation steps matches the following example: Daniel thought about whether he had highlighted the most important pieces of information. (a) reacting, (b) self-observing, (c) self-assessing.

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Leopold, C., Leutner, D. Improving students’ science text comprehension through metacognitive self-regulation when applying learning strategies. Metacognition Learning 10, 313–346 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-014-9130-2

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