1. Why Students Fail to Accurately Assess Their Own Learning
Keith B. Lyle, Ph.D.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Celebration of Teaching and Learning February 12, 2016

2. We struggle to assess our learning
Suboptimal metacognition
Our thoughts and knowledge about our thoughts and knowledge
Learning cannot be directly monitored 2

3. We struggle to assess our learning
Cf. hunger, tiredness
To know if you’ve learned something, you have to try to apply the knowledge
Students’ first attempt to apply knowledge is often on a high-stakes test 3

4. Students don’t initiate application
Study is dominated by attempts to increase ease of processing
Processing fluency
Kornell & Bjork (2007) 4

5. Students don’t initiate application
Koriat & Bjork (2005) 5

6. Students don’t initiate application
The association between learning and ease is exemplified by the meshing hypothesis
We (putatively) learn best when taught in the fashion we prefer
“The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing. If classification of students’ learning styles has practical utility, it remains to be demonstrated.” (Pashler et al., 2008) 6

7. Students don’t initiate application
Students realize that having to apply their knowledge grants them insight into their learning
Lyle & Crawford (2011) 7

8. Students take notes in a manner that undermines assessments of learning8

9. Notetaking and assessing learning
Some students attempt to transcribe lectures, or summarize readings, verbatim
These notes may be of little value when studying, although presumably they increase perceptions of learning
Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) 9

10. Optimism and assessing learning
Inaccurate assessment could imply under- or overestimating learning, but expect the latter 10

11. Optimism and assessing learning
If not required to apply knowledge, students overestimate how much they possess
76% of students think they are above average in critical thinking skills
Only 36% of students think the same about statistical knowledge 11

12. Optimism and assessing learning
Staring at material increases perceptions of learning
Karpicke (2009) 12

13. Optimism and assessing learning
Lyle & Simpson (2014) 13

14. Optimism and assessing learning
Overestimation may occur even when directly contradicted
The accuracy of answers that subjects judged as completely correct was “only” 89% in one experiment and 80% in another
Rawson et al. (2013) 14

15. Are we part of the solution…
…or part of the problem?
Do we provide sufficient direction on what to study?
Do we provide students with opportunities to assess learning—by doing—before the big test?
How similar are those opportunities to the test itself?
Students may learn that they can do X, when they need to learn that they can do Y 15

16. Learning is highly specific
We often wish that learning were abstract and hence transferable and flexible
Rawson et al. (2013) 16

17. Assessment following application
Assessments of learning may be inaccurate even following successful application of knowledge
Students do not appreciate how fleeting the ability to apply can be
Kornell & Bjork (2007) 17

18. Assessment following application
Information that is retrieved once may be irretrievable later
Karpicke (2009) 18

19. Assessment following application
Study that produces durable learning does not “feel” different than study that produces more fleeting learning
80% of subjects thought massing produced better learning than spacing
Kornell & Bjork (2008) 19

20. What to do Require application of knowledge Do so repeatedly
Do so at spaced intervals
Tell students: You don’t know if you’ve learned something until you can do something with it at a delay
Lyle et al. (2015) 20