Effects of Task Difficulty and Epistemological Beliefs on Metacognitive Calibration: A Pilot-Study

Abstract

This article presents a pilot study, which is part of a comprehensive project to examine the impact of epistemological beliefs on metacognitive calibration during learning processes within a complex hypermedia information system. More specifically, this pilot study investigates (1) if learners differentiate between tasks of different complexity, set goals and plan accordingly and (2) whether such adaptive learning behavior is influenced by their epistemological beliefs. Students (n = 72) inspected a set of six learning tasks and answered multiple questions derived from the COPES-model of self-regulated learning (Winne & Hadwin, 1998), e.g. they judged the importance of specific learning strategies for a particular learning task. Furthermore, they filled in inventories measuring their epistemological beliefs. Results confirmed significant influences of task complexity and epistemological beliefs on students' judgments.