The effects of comprehension-test expectancies on metacomprehension accuracy

A set of four experiments assessed the effects of establishing a comprehension-test expectancy (in contrast to a memory-test expectancy) on relative metacomprehension accuracy. Typically readers show poor relative metacomprehension accuracy while learning from text (i.e., they are unable to discriminate topics they have understood well from topics they have understood poorly). In the first experiment, both readers who were given no test expectancy and those who were given a memory-test expectancy made judgments that were more predictive of performance on memory tests than inference tests. However, readers who were given a comprehension-test expectancy made judgments that were more predictive of inference-test performance. This effect was replicated and extended in two additional experiments that showed an effect of comprehension-test expectancy even when no example test items were provided, and when the expectancy was established only after reading. A fourth experiment showed that establishing a comprehension-test expectancy still had an effect on accuracy even when metacomprehension accuracy was already being improved via a self-explanation activity. The results show robust and reliable benefits to metacomprehension accuracy from a comprehension-test expectancy that serves as portable knowledge that learners can apply to monitoring future learning from text.