Relationships among metamemory, motivation and memory performance in young school‐age children

Abstract

This study examines relationships among young children's metamemory, effort attributions and memory‐task performance. Eighty‐one second and third graders participated in the study. The children were administered two study‐recall memory tasks using potentially clusterable items, and questionnaires to assess memoryknowledge and effort attributions. Four path models predicting item recall, specifying strategy use at study and at recall as endogenous variables and memory knowledge and effort attributions as exogenous variables, were compared. The best‐fit model specified both (1) a direct effect of metamemory on item recall, and (2) a direct effect of metamemory and effort attributions on the use of a clustering strategy during the study period, and thus an indirect effect on item recall. Additionally, the findings add support to the argument that the effects of memory influences may be culturally linked.