Individual differences in metacognition: Evidence against a general metacognitive ability

Individual differences in metacognitive accuracy are generally thought to r eflect differences in metacognitive ability. If so, memory monitoring perfo rmance should be consistent across different metacognitive tasks and show h igh test-retest reliability. Two experiments examined these possibilities, using four common metacognitive tasks: ease of learning judgments, feeling of knowing judgments, judgments of learning, and text comprehension monitor ing. Alternate-forms correlations were computed for metacognitive accuracy (with a 1-week interval between tests). Although individual differences in memory and confidence were stable across both sessions and tasks, differenc es in metacognitive accuracy were not. These results pose considerable prac tical and theoretical challenges for metacognitive researchers.