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It is well established in educational research that metacognitive monitoring of performance assessed by self-reports, for instance, asking students to report their confidence in provided answers, is based on heuristic cues rather than on actual success in the task. Subjective self-reports are also used in educational research on cognitive load, where they refer to the perceived amount of mental effort invested in or difficulty of each task item. In the present study, we examined the potential underlying bases and the predictive value of mental effort and difficulty appraisals compared to confidence appraisals by applying metacognitive concepts and paradigms. In three experiments, participants faced verbal logic problems or one of two non-verbal reasoning tasks. In a between-participants design, each task item was followed by either mental effort, difficulty, or confidence appraisals. We examined the associations between the various appraisals, response time, and success rates. Consistently across all experiments, we found that mental effort and difficulty appraisals were associated more strongly than confidence with response time. Further, while all appraisals were highly predictive of solving success, the strength of this association was stronger for difficulty and confidence appraisals (which were similar) than for mental effort appraisals. We conclude that mental effort and difficulty appraisals are prone to misleading cues like other metacognitive judgments and are based on unique underlying processes. These findings challenge the accepted notion that mental effort appraisals can serve as reliable reflections of cognitive load.

Background: Hyper-video technology allows reflection on learning materials by writing personal notes and by interactions with lecturers and peers through shared posts and replies. While research shows that integrating hyper-videos in educational systems can promote the learning processes and outcomes, an open question remains regarding its actual utilization patterns by students and teachers. Objectives: The study aimed to reveal the extent to which students utilize different functions of hyper-videos in real-life learning contexts, and to examine the role of instructional design on hyper-video utilization. Method: In a mixed-method design, the study characterized active and passive interactions in hyper-videos in higher education courses, and amongst active interactions, compared shared versus private annotations. Additionally, the study compared voluntary and mandatory instructional design for promoting hyper-video interactions. In particular, we used learning analytics to explore hyper-video patterns in 25 undergraduate and graduate courses. Results and Discussion: A log analysis revealed that students wrote most of the posts, while lecturers mainly provided replies to students' posts. Private annotations were more prevalent than shared writing, pointing to the unfulfilled potential of hyper-video annotations to benefit from collaborative learning. A qualitative analysis on instructional design was consistent with quantitative findings, revealing important differences between the courses with mandatory versus voluntary hyper-video integration in pedagogical design, and in cognitive presence and teaching presence, based on the community of inquiry framework. Major takeaways: Findings point to an unfulfilled potential of hyper-video technology to promote active and collaborative learning. This highlights the role of design and instructive guidance when integrating technology into educational systems.

Academic dishonesty has been growing in both digital and analog settings. The present study aimed to generalize the ethical dissonance index (EDI), which was established in a sample of Israeli school students as the gap between the pervasiveness of academic dishonesty and its perceived legitimacy. Furthermore, the study examined how technology, dishonesty type and individual differences affect these factors. The study employed a scenario-based approach -- an indirect strategy for deducing academic dishonest behaviors. Participants were 1055 school students from various grade levels, geographic locations and religious/ethnic sectors. Results regarding the role of technology revealed that, overall, digital academic dishonesty was less pervasive and deemed more legitimate compared to analog dishonesty. However, this relationship varied as a function of dishonesty type. Findings confirmed that students experienced some level of ethical dissonance, generalizing the EDI. Notably, individual differences did not affect the relationship between media, dishonesty type and the EDI.

Body image dissatisfaction has been associated with harmful effects on the psychological well-being of women in western societies. Religion has been suggested to be a protective factor against body image dissatisfaction, though its precise mechanisms are not fully understood. Thus, the present study investigated the relationship between religious denominations and body image, both positive and negative. Further, it examined strength of religious faith, media exposure, and modesty, as possible mediating factors underlying this relationship. Participants were 483 Jewish women belonging to ultra-Orthodox, modern-Orthodox, or to a secular population. All factors were measured by self-report questionnaires. Findings revealed that compared to secular Jewish women, ultra-Orthodox Jewish women maintain more positive attitudes regarding their bodies, and suffer less from body image dissatisfaction. Importantly, positive and negative body image had unique effects: Positive body image differed between the Ultra-Orthodox group and the other two groups, and this relationship was fully mediated both by media exposure and by strength of religious faith. For negative body image, secular women differed from the two other groups, and this relationship was fully mediated only by media exposure. These findings are discussed in light of sociocultural influences, and related clinical implications., Author(s): Shulamit Geller [sup.1], Jonathan Handelzalts [sup.1], Rita Gelfat [sup.1], Shirli Arbel [sup.1], Yael Sidi [sup.2], Sigal Levy [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.430432.2, 0000 0004 0604 7651, School of Behavioral [...]

Screen inferiority in performance and metacognitive processes has been repeatedly found with text learning. Common explanations for screen inferiority relate to technological and physiological disadvantages associated with extensive reading on screen. However, recent studies point to lesser recruitment of mental effort on screen than on paper. Learning tasks involving a heavy reading burden confound technological and physiological media differences with potential media effects on recruitment of mental effort. The present study focused on media effects on effort recruitment. We examined whether screen inferiority remains even with a brief task that nevertheless requires effort recruitment. In two experiments, participants faced three short math problems that require systematic processing to solve correctly. We examined media effect on solving these problems, and the potential of disturbed perceptual fluency (i.e., disfluent versus fluent fonts) to induce effort investment. Overall, there were no performance differences between the media. However, when collecting confidence ratings, disfluency improved performance on screen and hindered it on paper. Only on paper confidence ratings were sensitive to performance differences associated with fluency, and resolution was better with the disfluent font than with the fluent font. Correspondingly, another sample reported on their preference of media for solving the problems. They expressed a clear reluctance to working on screen despite the task being brief. This preference is suggestive of reliable meta-metacognitive judgments reflecting the general lower quality of metacognitive processes on screen. The findings call for considering medium and presentation format effects on metacognitive processing when designing computerized environments, even for brief tasks.

The relationship between affect and metacognitive processes has been largely overlooked in both the affect and the metacognition literatures. While at the core of many affect-cognition theories is the notion that positive affective states lead people to be more confident, few studies systematically investigated how positive affect influences confidence and strategic behaviour. In two experiments, when participants were free to control answer interval to general knowledge questions (e.g. question: “in what year”, answer: “it was between 1970 and 1985”), participants induced with positive affect outperformed participants in a neutral affect condition. However, in Experiment 1 positive affect participants showed larger overconfidence than neutral affect participants. In Experiment 2, enhanced salience of social cues eliminated this overconfidence disadvantage of positive affect relative to neutral affect participants, without compromising their enhanced performance. Notably, in both experiments, positive affect led to compromised social norms regarding the answers’ informativeness. Implications for both affect and metacognition are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the current study was to assess the uniqueness of the condition of kidney transplant recipients in comparison to a sample of matching healthy peers in relation to body-image dissatisfaction and identification, quality of life and psychological distress. Participants were 45 kidney transplant recipients who were under follow-up care at a Transplant Unit of a major Medical Center, and a sample of 45 matching healthy peers. Measures were taken using self-report questionnaires [Body-Image Ideals Questionnaire (BIIQ), Body Identification Questionnaire (BIQ), Brief Symptoms Inventory (BSI), and the SF-12]. The major findings were the following: (i) kidney transplant recipients reported lower levels of quality of life and higher levels of PsD when compared to their healthy peers; (ii) no difference in body-image dissatisfaction was found between the two studied groups; (iii) significant correlations between body-image dissatisfaction quality of life and PsD were found only in the kidney transplant recipients. The kidney transplantation condition has a moderating effect in the association between body-image dissatisfaction PsD but not in the association between body-image dissatisfaction and quality of life; (iv) kidney transplant recipients experienced higher levels of body identification than did their healthy peers. Taken together, these findings highlight the unique condition of kidney transplant recipients, as well as the function that body-image plays within the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role that body image plays in the psychological adjustment of kidney-transplant recipients is an understudied issue. In the current study, the association between three variables – (a) body-image dissatisfaction, (b) quality of life (QOL), and (c) psychological distress – was investigated. The research participants were 45 kidney-transplant recipients who were under follow-up care at the Transplant Unit of the Tel-Aviv Medical Center (Israel). Body image, psychological distress, and QOL were measured using self-report questionnaires [Body-Image Ideals Questionnaire (BIIQ), Brief Symptoms Inventory (BSI), and SF-12]. Medical and background data were collected from medical and administrative records. The findings indicated an association between higher level of body-image dissatisfaction and a decrease in several quality-of-life dimensions (role emotional, physical pain, general health, and social functioning), and with an increase in psychological distress. These findings highlight the importance of body-image dissatisfaction as a factor that is associated with QOL and psychological distress among kidney-transplant recipients. Body image warrants further attention and should be screened and treated among those who demonstrate high levels of dissatisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]