Delayed Metacomprehension Judgments Do Not Directly Improve Learning from Texts

Making judgments of learning (JOLs) after studying can directly improve learning. This JOL reactivity has been shown for simple materials but has scarcely been investigated with educationally relevant materials such as expository texts. The few existing studies have not yet reported any consistent gains in text comprehension due to providing JOLs. In the present study, we hypothesized that increasing the chances of covert retrieval attempts when making JOLs after each of five to-be-studied text passages would produce comprehension benefits at 1 week compared to restudy. In a between-subjects design, we manipulated both whether participants (N = 210) were instructed to covertly retrieve the texts, and whether they made delayed target-absent JOLs. The results indicated that delayed, target-absent JOLs did not improve text comprehension after 1 week, regardless of whether prior instructions to engage in covert retrieval were provided. Based on the two-stage model of JOLs, we reasoned that participants’ retrieval attempts during metacomprehension judgments were either insufficient (i.e., due to a quick familiarity assessment) or were ineffective (e.g., due to low retrieval success).