Phrasing Questions in Terms of Current (Not Future) Knowledge Increases Preferences for Cue-Only Judgments of Learning

Effective learning demands knowledge about what learning strategies are most effective. Much research has addressed what students’ know about how to improve memory. However, to effectively study it is also important to accurately feel (i.e., monitor) how well or poorly you have learned; for example, a glossary list, because such monitoring is closely related to the decisions students make about what to restudy. Such monitoring, termed judgments of learning (JOLs), predict later recall of glossaries (i.e., word pairs) more accurately when they are made after a delay, while viewing the first word only (cue) compared with both words in a word pair (cue and target). We investigated whether people recognize the benefit of cue-only responses when making JOLs and whether their preferences depend on how JOL prompts are phrased. Forty participants studied glossaries and then made delayed cue-only and cue-target JOLs. When the JOL prompts were phrased as predictions of future memory performance, only 15% of the participants preferred the better cue-only strategy. When JOLs were instead phrased as assessments of the current state of learning, 55% preferred the cue-only strategy. To conclude, students do not seem to recognize the value of cue-only JOLs, but they picked the superior JOL strategy more often when the JOL phrasing focused their attention on their knowledge state at the time of the JOL, rather than on a future state. This indicates that study-advice to students should not only include information about how to improve memory, but also about how to improve monitoring. S C I E N T I F I C A B S T R A C T Judgments of learning (JOLs) predict later recall more accurately when they are made, after a delay, based on a cue alone compared with a cue and target. We investigated whether people recognize the benefit of cue-only responses when making JOLs and whether their preferences depend on how JOL prompts are phrased. Forty participants studied glossaries and then made delayed cue-only and cue-target JOLs. In one condition, where the JOL prompts were phrased as predictions of future memory performance, only 15% of the participants preferred the cue-only strategy, replicating Jönsson and Kerimi (2011). In another condition, where JOLs were phrased as assessments of the current state of learning, 55% preferred the cue-only strategy. To conclude, students do not seem to recognize the value of cue-only JOLs, but they picked the superior JOL strategy more often when the JOL phrasing focused their attention on their knowledge state at the time of the JOL, rather than on a future state.