Abstract
To effectively self-regulate learning, children need to self-evaluate whether they meet learning goals. Unfortunately, self-evaluations are often inaccurate, typically, children are overconfident. We investigated two explanations for developmental progression in self-evaluations related to children's (48 5/6 year-olds and 53 7/8-year-olds) interpretations of performance: Improved reliance on item difficulty, and reduced sensitivity to self-protection biases. Self-evaluations were more accurate for 7/8-year-olds than for 5/6-year-olds. There was no developmental increase in reliance on item difficulty; even 5/6-year-olds made adaptive use of this cue. Both age groups were overconfident for incorrect responses, but were able to use performance feedback to improve confidence judgments. However, when self-rewarding, 5/6 year-olds were less likely to take negative performance feedback into account than 7/8-year-olds. The 5/6-year-olds were able to base confidence judgments on performance feedback, but did not use feedback to the same extent when self-rewarding. This may indicate that self-protective biases are an important cause of overconfidence in children. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 47-60 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Learning and Instruction |
Volume | 51 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2017 |
Keywords
- Confidence judgments
- Self-reward
- Children
- Development
- Overconfidence
- METACOGNITIVE JUDGMENTS
- SPONTANEOUS ALLOCATION
- ADAPTIVE NATURE
- EARLY-CHILDHOOD
- YOUNG-CHILDREN
- EVENT RECALL
- MEMORY TASK
- ACCURACY
- STUDENTS
- UNCERTAINTY