Self and external monitoring of reading comprehension.

Abstract

The present study compared the effectiveness of 2 approaches to remedy the inaccuracy of self-monitoring of reading comprehension. The first approach attempts to enhance self-monitoring by strengthening the cues utilized in monitoring. The second approach replaces self-monitoring with external regulation based on objective evaluative information. We used the delayed-keyword effects (Thiede, Anderson, & Therriault, 2003) to produce different levels of self-monitoring accuracy and, at each accuracy level, compared selection of texts for restudy by the participants themselves with selection by the computer on the basis of a comprehension test taken by the participants. We found that the computer-select groups were more able than the self-select groups to choose the least understood texts for restudy and obtained larger improvement on those texts in a final comprehension test. It appears that a comprehension test can provide more accurate information than self-monitoring for regulation of study. The role of objective evaluative information in self-regulation of learning is discussed.