Abstract
This chapter focuses on on-line metacognitive processes, in particular, comprehension monitoring in reading. Interesting prospects of technology-supported on-line methods for metacognitive studies on comprehension monitoring are outlined on the basis of current empirical evidence. First, the on-line methods to study comprehension monitoring are described and discussed, and our studies of elementary (Grade 1–6) school students’ monitoring and regulating comprehension feature the application of two of the methods, namely traced silent reading and eyetracking. Second, these studies give evidence on young students’ comprehension monitoring and developmental trends as a function of grade, decoding skills, listening and reading comprehension skills and intervention. As an example, results from a recent study linking students’ comprehension monitoring, mood and metacognitive experiences are presented in more detail. The future promise and prospects of technology-supported on-line comprehension monitoring methods for metacognition research and of assessing affects associated with comprehension monitoring processes are discussed. It is argued that the modern technology allowing synchronized data collection of affective reactions and reading comprehension behavior offer important new opportunities to enhance current theories and empirical knowledge, particularly, of linkages between emotional and metacognitive processes.
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Notes
- 1.
It must be noted, though, that by the end of Grade 1 most of the Finnish children learn to read rather fluently; not only letters and words, but also longer text passages, and an increasing number of them acquire decoding skills prior to schooling at home or kindergarten. A concrete indication of the first graders’ ability to rapidly and correctly decode words is that in a lexical decision task (syllable length of the words = 2; 36 words in series; n = 226), the mean decision time for words was 2.96 s (SD = 1.44 s) with the mean error rate 1.04 (SD = 1.15). In the word naming task, on average, it took less than 3 seconds for them to correctly name short (one- or two-syllable) words. Interestingly (and validating the differing methods), almost one-to-one correspondence in reading times of words in the naming task, and the target words of equal length in traced silent reading was observed. Further, most of the first graders were already able to read short stories at moderate speed and with remarkable accuracy (Kinnunen et al., 1998).
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The research was supported by Grant 114048 from the Council of Cultural and Social Science Research, The Academy of Finland, to the first author.
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Kinnunen, R., Vauras, M. (2010). Tracking On-Line Metacognition: Monitoring and Regulating Comprehension in Reading. In: Efklides, A., Misailidi, P. (eds) Trends and Prospects in Metacognition Research. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6546-2_10
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