Phrasing Questions in Terms of Current (not future) Knowledge Increases Preferences for Cue-only Judgments of Learning

Judgments of learning (JOLs) predict later recall more accurately when they are made, after a delay, based on a cue alone as compared to a cue and target. The investigation focussed on whether people recognize the benefit of cue-only responses when making JOLs and whether their preferences depend on how JOL prompts are phrased. Forty participants studied glossaries and then made delayed cue-only and cue-target JOLs. In one condition, where the JOL prompts were phrased as predictions of future memory performance, only 15 percent of the participants preferred the cue-only strategy, replicating Jönsson and Kerimi (2011). In another condition, where JOLs were phrased as assessments of the current state of learning, 55 percent preferred the cue-only strategy. To conclude, students do not seem to recognize the value of cue-only JOLs, but they picked the superior JOL strategy more often when the JOL phrasing focused their attention on their knowledge state at the time of the JOL, rather than on a future state.