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2 references
Bjork, Dunlosky, and Kornell review why learners often mismanage their own study.
People commonly use immediate performance and subjective fluency as evidence of learning, even though ease during practice may reflect short-lived accessibility rather than durable memory. Beliefs about learning influence strategy selection, and judgments of learning can be distorted by rereading, answer availability, recent success, or familiar presentation. Effective self-regulation requires distinguishing learning from performance, scheduling retrieval and spacing, using tests as learning events, learning from errors with feedback, and monitoring under conditions that resemble future use. The authors also examine educational and cultural practices that reward rapid, error-free performance and thereby reinforce illusions.
For educators, the review supports explicitly teaching how memory works, delaying judgments, using cumulative retrieval, and helping students compare predictions with later outcomes so they can calibrate study decisions.
Carpenter, Witherby, and Tauber review illusions that distort students' judgements of learning and teaching effectiveness.
Smooth lectures, familiar material, engaging presentation, and low effort can increase subjective fluency and confidence without producing durable learning. Conversely, active learning, retrieval, spacing, and other effortful methods may feel less effective while creating stronger performance. These metacognitive errors affect study choices and can also influence course evaluations, which are further shaped by characteristics unrelated to learning. Heavy institutional reliance on satisfaction ratings may therefore reward practices that feel good immediately rather than those that develop knowledge and self-regulation.
For educators and leaders, the review recommends measuring learning independently of impressions, explaining desirable difficulties, giving students opportunities to compare predictions with later performance, and interpreting teaching evaluations cautiously alongside evidence of course design and achievement.
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