Effects of Reflective Activity on Test Prediction Illusions on Achievement Goal Types and Metacognition

The purpose of this study is to verify whether the activity of allowing students to directly recognize their illusions in a test score prediction situation and reflect on the reasons and causes in writing can improve beneficial educational dispositions or competencies. A total of 151 university students were asked to predict their expected and desired scores before the midterm and final exams. Surveys on achievement goal types, learning strategy utility, and metacognitive capacity(MCC) were conducted. All students were informed of their illusion score before the final exam and were asked to reflect on the reasons and causes in writing. The conclusions of the study are as follows: First, the opportunity for illusion(i) reflection changed the type of i from overestimation(OE) to underestimation(UE) and reduced the range of i scores. It also changed the strong negative correlation with the actual score to no correlation. Second, it reduced the difference between the orientations of ‘mastery-approach’ and ‘performance- approach’. Additionally, OEs developed a stronger ‘mastery-approach’ orientation compared to other types of i. Third, the reflection opportunity led to the more frequent use of ‘low’ strategies, which are characterized by high retrieval strength, fluency i, and stability i. Fourth, it is suggested that the reflection activity possibly strengthened the overall MCC for OEs, weakened the MC ‘knowledge’ capacity for UEs, and strengthened the MC ‘regulation’ capacity for OEs. In conclusion, the activity of informing students of their i scores and having them reflect on the reasons achieved beneficial educational effects by reducing the degree of i and enhancing the MC regulation capacity.