Assessing the Accuracy of Students’ Metacognitive Awareness of Psychology Concepts

The present study explored the accuracy of participants’ (N = 317) metacognitive awareness (self-reported difficulty and confidence) of psychology concepts and the moderating effects of their psychology background (academic major, number of psychology courses completed, and overall psychology course grades). Participants first rated the difficulty of and their confidence in their knowledge of concepts from seven different subareas of psychology. They then completed a multiple-choice assessment testing their knowledge of the concepts they had previously rated. The results showed that both participants’ metacognitive awareness and experience in psychology predicted their accuracy on the assessment. A more extensive background in psychology was associated with a stronger relationship between metacognitive awareness and accuracy. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that metacognitive awareness contributed unique variance in predicting accuracy after accounting for students' psychology background. A parallel mediation analysis investigated the relationship between psychology background and metacognitive awareness on accuracy. This analysis revealed that confidence mediated the relationship between participants’ psychology background and their performance on the assessment. The results of the present study demonstrate that participants’ metacognitive awareness of psychology concepts increases with increasing psychological knowledge and experience. These findings suggest that psychology instructors should adjust their instructional and assessment strategies according to their students’ experience and knowledge levels and that more experienced psychology students should rely more on their metacognitive judgments to self-regulate their learning.