Learning from text and video blogs: comprehension effects on secondary school students

Informational video blogs are a popular method of communication among students that may be fruitful educational tools, but their potential benefits and risks remain unclear. Streaming videos created by YouTubers are often consumed for entertainment, which may lead students to develop habits that hinder in-depth information processing. We aimed to test this hypothesis by comparing students’ perceived attention to task, metacognitive calibration of their level of comprehension, and comprehension outcomes between reading text blogs and watching video blogs. We also examined the influence of notetaking. 188 lower secondary students read two text blog entries and watched two video blog entries, and completed a series of tasks. Results showed no statistically significant effect of blog format and notetaking on students’ perceived on-task attention, metacognitive calibration, and comprehension of blog entries. Nevertheless, we found a triple interaction effect of format, notetaking, and students’ reading comprehension on blog entry comprehension. Only students low in reading comprehension benefited from notetaking and only when they read the text blog entries. These results indicate that video blogs can be as suitable for learning as text blogs and that notetaking can help struggling readers overcome their difficulties when learning from text blogs but not from video blogs.

It matters how to recall – task differences in retrieval practice

The type of a recall task may substantially influence the effects of learning by retrieval practice. In a within-subject design, 54 university students studied two expository texts, followed by retrieval practice with either short-answer tasks (targeted retrieval) or a free-recall task (holistic retrieval). Concerning the direct effects of retrieval practice, short-answer tasks led to increased retention of directly retrieved targeted information from the learning contents, whereas free-recall tasks led to better retention of further information from the learning contents. Concerning indirect effects, short-answer tasks improved metacognitive calibration; free-recall tasks increased self-efficacy and situational interest. These findings confirm the assumption that the effects of retrieval practice depend on the type of recall task: short-answer tasks help us remember targeted information units and foster metacognitive calibration. Free-recall tasks help us remember a broader spectrum of information, and they foster motivational factors.

Psychophysical deconstruction of the Dunning-Kruger effect

The Dunning-Kruger effect (DKE) is the finding that, across a wide range of tasks, poor performers greatly overestimate their ability, while top performers make more accurate self-assessments. The original account of the DKE involves the idea that metacognitive insight requires the same skills as task performance, so that unskilled people perform poorly and lack insight. However, typical global measures of self-assessment are prone to statistical and other biases that could explain the same pattern. We used psychophysical methods to examine metacognitive insight in simple movement and spatial memory tasks: pointing at a dot, or recalling its position after a short delay. We measured task skill in an initial block, and self-assessment in a second block, in which participants judged after every trial whether they had hit the target or not. Metacognitive calibration and sensitivity were indeed related to task skill, and partially mediated the DKE. In a second study, we again measured task skill in an initial block, but titrated task difficulty in the second block so that all participants performed the task with equivalent levels of success. Metacognitive measures were again related to skill, but the DKE pattern itself was eliminated. In a third study, we used statistical modelling to illuminate these findings, showing that differences in metacognitive calibration and sensitivity can contribute to the DKE, but are neither necessary nor sufficient for it. This general analysis explains and quantifies how metacognitive insight and other factors interact to determine this famous effect.