“How do I remember when I got my dog?” The structure and development of children’s metamemory

Abstract

Kreutzer et al.'s (Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 40 (1): 1975) metamemory interview has been widely used in children's metamemory literature, yet the psychometric properties of the measure have yet to be reported, and the format and language of some subtests may pose problems for young children. Researchers often combine subtests with other tests purported to measure metamemory, yet there is little empirical data regarding how these subtests relate. It has been proposed that metamemory is comprised of distinct procedural and declarative components, but this has not been empirically tested in young children. Therefore, the two studies reported here aimed to adapt Kreutzer et al.'s interview to increase its developmental appropriateness, to examine the relationship between the interview subtests, to add subtests that purport to test procedural metamemory, and then to examine the factor structure of the resulting scores and investigate how metamemory changes with age across the elementary school years. The results suggest that the adapted versions of the subtests are generally less contaminated by language ability, especially for the younger children. Factor analysis indicated the presence of two declarative metamemory factors and one procedural metamemory factor. Both declarative factors followed a similar developmental trajectory, increasing steadily from early to late elementary school age, whereas procedural metamemory increased significantly between Grades 1 and 3 only. Keywords Metamemory . DevelopmentalMost children understand that we hold memories for past experiences, memorize shopping lists and remember to take our lunch to school, but not all understand what factors affect our memory for past events, increase our chances of remembering a shopping list, or allow us to be 100% certain to take our lunch to school. Children learn all about memories and Metacognition Learning (2010) 5:207-228

The origins of children’s metamemory: The role of theory of mind

“…Overall, existing studies show substantial improvements in DM between kindergarten and early school years (e.g., Cavanaugh & Borkowski, 1980;Fritz, Howie, & Kleitman, 2010;Sodian, Schneider, & Perlmutter, 1986), with preschool children showing a basic understanding of metamemory-relevant variables (Kreutzer, Leonard, & Flavell, 1975;Lockl & Schneider, 2007;Wellman, 1977). Given the effects of metamemory on children's learning (Schneider, 2008), it is striking that very few studies have investigated the origins of children's knowledge about memory.…”

The use of ground rules in investigative interviews with children: A synthesis and call for research

“…Evidence that procedural metacognition develops most rapidly in the early elementary-school years comes from Fritz, Howie, and Kleitman (2010), who found a large increase in performance between 6-and 8-years-old with continued but slower improvement toward the end of elementary school. An oft-cited set of experiments by Markman (1979), aimed at characterizing children's comprehension monitoring, found stronger evidence for later development.…”

Metacognitive Strategies: Asset to Efficient Learning and Education

“…This also leads to the bipolarization of the research intentions. While some of the researchers focus on knowledge through the memory processing of the students (Fritz -Howie -Kleitman, 2010), others (Luwel -TorbeynsVerschaffel, 2003) measure gained knowledge of students through inner learning strategy approaches. Despite of the relations of the metacognitive components between each other, W. Schneider (2009) presents a list of studies which were focused on these relations previously mentioned.…”