Age-Related Differences Between Knowledge, Beliefs, and Metacognitive Skills
Abstract
This study investigated whether there are age-related differences in how people evaluate and think about information. The purpose of this study was to examine potential age-related differences in people’s ownership of knowledge, in terms of what they believe and what they think other people believe. There were three groups of participants: adolescents (ages 11–15), adults (ages 18–30), and older adults (age 60 and older). Adolescents were gathered through local religious schools and online parent forums. The adults and older adults were gathered through Mechanical Turk. Participants were given four measures to complete: demographic questions, general knowledge statements, incorrect/correct brain function statements, and the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory. Results from the study showed that with regards to the incorrect/correct brain statements, no age-related differences were seen for agreement, yet age-related differences were seen for the participant’s fact and belief ratings. Results from the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory demonstrated a significant effect of age group on metacognitive skills, more specifically, the adult group had a significantly higher percentage correct for the monitoring category than the older adult group. Age-related differences were also examined between metacognitive skills and correctly identifying both the incorrect and correct brain statements as facts. Interestingly, the adolescent group demonstrated that higher metacognitive skills were related to better identifying both the correct and incorrect brain statements as being facts. The adult group showed that high metacognitive skills in 2 out of the 8 categories led to better identifying the correct brain statements as facts
Subject Area
Cognitive psychology
Recommended Citation
Weine, Lauren Jade, "Age-Related Differences Between Knowledge, Beliefs, and Metacognitive Skills" (2017). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI10603407.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI10603407
