iSTART: Moderating Effects of Prior Knowledge and Metacognitive Awareness on Self-Explanation Training

• In Event: Poster Session 15
  In Poster Session: Metacognition, Studying, and Self-Regulated Learning

Abstract

iSTART (McNamara et al., 2004) is an online strategy trainer that teaches self-explanation. The current study tests the efficacy of iSTART to support college biology students’ learning. Participants were either taught to self-explain and later reminded to apply self-explanation to new material (SE-R), taught to self-explain and not later reminded (SE-NR), or provided no instruction (Control). Results show that SE-NR participants had higher posttest scores than control participants; there was a marginally significant difference between control and the SE-R condition participants. Moderator analyses indicate that students with low prior knowledge or metacognitive awareness benefit from iSTART when reminded of training, but participants high on these attributes benefit more when they were not reminded.

Authors

• Peggy N. Van Meter, The Pennsylvania State University

• Danielle Waters, Pennsylvania State University

• Alexa M Kottmeyer, The Pennsylvania State University

• Jacqueline Maguire, The Pennsylvania State University - University Park

• Michelle Hepfer

• John R Waters, The Pennsylvania State University