Methodology for Investigating Human Metamemory
Research on metamemory focuses on a core set of issues that pertain to people’s beliefs about memory, their monitoring of memory, and their control of memory. To address these issues, researchers have used variants of a small set of methods, which often involve using standard memory methods and then having participants make judgments about their memory or control different phases of learning. Despite the overlap of methods with standard memory research, metamemory research poses some unique problems and pitfalls that can make interpretation of results tricky. The present chapter overviews the core issues addressed by the majority of metamemory research and describes the general methods typically used to address them. Most important, it highlights some of the problems and pitfalls of metamemory research and offers some suggestions on how to solve or sidestep them.