The Effect of Annotation on Metacomprehension of Text

Metacomprehension refers to a person’s ability to monitor what information has been learned through reading. Good metacomprehension is important for efficient studying. Prior research shows that most readers demonstrate quite poor metacomprehension. Ironically, making texts easier to read, for example, by underlining important ideas, impair metacognition. In the present experiment, we explored whether reading an underlined text or a plain text produces better pretest and posttest metacomprehension judgments. Consistent with prior research, although overall test accuracy was the same between conditions, the more difficult plain text condition improved the accuracy of metacomprehension judgments compared to the underline group