METACOGNITIVE KNOWLEDGE AND CLASS LEVEL DIFFERENCES IN A MULTIMEDIA READING TASK: THE PANDHEMOT APP

Metacognitive knowledge (MK) includes self-knowledge, i.e., the awareness of one’s strengths/weaknesses pertaining to a learning activity. MK is crucial as it influences both students’ learning and strategies. In traditional reading tasks, MK usually increases with age; less is known concerning MK related to digital reading. We investigated whether learning through a multimedia reading task (MRT) affects MK, focusing on class level differences. A sample of 152 3rd (M = 8.35, SD = 0.28) and 7th graders (M = 12.40, SD = 0.30), divided in experimental/control groups, participated to a training using tablets. Through a MRT–the app PandHEMOT (Pandemics-Helmet for EMOTions)–we promoted their knowledge on pandemics and emotions. In pre and post-task phases we assessed MK measuring how many things students declared to know about the training contents. Running LMMs, we found an increase in MK after the MRT only in the experimental group. Moreover, both scores in the nine levels of the MRT and MK were higher for 7th vs. 3rd graders. However, MK was not related to MRT scores. Our findings indicate that participating to a psychoeducational training using digital reading is associated also to changes in students’ metacognition, as a relevant step for generalizing learning to other contexts.