SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON METACOGNITION - EFFECTS OF COLEARNER QUESTIONINGON COMPREHENSION MONITORING

Four experiments examined social influences on metacognition, testing whether learners' knowledge that colearners have questions about mater ial they are simultaneously viewing affects learners' own judged level s of comprehension. In Experiment 1 (n = 88), the frequency with which learners indicated they were confused increased with the number of qu estions they believed colearners had about the material. Experiment 2 (n = 38) determined that the effect of colearner questioning on self-j udged comprehension was not due to distraction or social facilitation. Experiment 3 (n = 100) replicated the results of Experiment 1 and fou nd that the social impact on learners' judgments of comprehension was less when questions were believed to have come from 3 colearners rathe r than 1. Experiment 4 (n = 60) suggested that the number of questions per colearner determines their impact on others' comprehension judgme nts.