Educational Psychology & Metacognition

Q: What is functionalism in educational psychology?
A: A focus on how learning helps solve real-life problems, not just lab-based theories.

Q: What did John Dewey believe about learning?
A: Students learn best by doing hands-on projects and reflecting on their experiences.

Q: What is behaviorism's role in education?
A: Focus on observable behavior shaped by rewards and punishments (Skinner).

Q: Why was WWII important for curriculum design?
A: Psychologists created step-by-step training to quickly teach large groups essential skills.

Q: What is the cognitive revolution in education?
A: A shift toward studying memory, schemas, and thinking processes inside the mind.

Q: What is metacognition?
A: Thinking about your own thinking—awareness and control of how you learn or solve problems.

Q: What is metamemory?
A: Your knowledge about how well you remember and what strategies you use to improve memory.

Q: What are the three types of metaknowledge?
A: Declarative (what you know), Procedural (how you use it), Conditional (when/why to use it).

Q: Winer et al. – What was the procedure and dependent measure?
A: Adults chose between diagrams showing vision. Dependent measure: how often they chose the incorrect extramission diagram.

Q: What did Winer et al. find about vision beliefs?
A: Many adults wrongly believed vision comes out of the eyes, showing persistent misconceptions.

Q: What is change blindness blindness, and how was it tested?
A: Participants predicted they'd notice changes, then watched a video and pressed a button when they saw changes. Dependent measure: actual detection rate vs. predicted.

Q: What is metacognitive control?
A: Using awareness to plan, monitor, and adjust your learning in real time.

Q: Nelson et al. – What was the procedure and dependent measures?
A: Participants studied word pairs, gave JOLs, then made FOK judgments during recall. Dependent measures: recall accuracy for JOLs and recognition accuracy for FOKs.

Q: What did Nelson et al. find about metamemory?
A: People often overestimate memory ability; there's a gap between judgment and actual performance.

Q: Why does inaccurate metacognition hurt studying?
A: You might spend too much time on what you already know and too little on what you don’t.

Q: What is the ICAP framework?
A: A hierarchy of learning engagement: Interactive > Constructive > Active > Passive.

Q: Chi & Wylie (2014) – What was the procedure and finding?
A: Classroom studies comparing engagement levels. Found that more interactive learning led to better memory and understanding.

Q: What was the goal of the Zepeda article?
A: To link metacognitive strategies to ICAP and understand how self-reports relate to performance.

Q: Zepeda – Who were the participants and why were both open and closed questions used?
A: 342 undergrads in a psych course; open-ended revealed new strategies, closed-ended required judgment about listed strategies.

Q: What were Zepeda’s key findings?
A: Students used more constructive than active strategies; time management was rarely mentioned.

Q: Brod et al. (2017) – What was the procedure and dependent measures?
A: Compared 1st graders and kindergartners using inhibitory control tasks. Dependent measures: accuracy, reaction time, brain activation.

Q: What did the Brod study find?
A: 1st graders (formal schooling) performed better on inhibitory control, showing domain-general skill growth.

Q: What is the Hearts and Flowers task and how is it structured?
A: Children respond to hearts (same side) and flowers (opposite side). Mixed phase requires rule-switching and working memory.

Q: What was the procedure and finding in the Hearts and Flowers task?
A: Pre-test in September, post-test in June after school year. 1st graders improved more in attention, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility.

Q: What domain-general skills improved with formal schooling?
A: Attention, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility—all essential for academic success.