Given that learning with multiple texts often involves self-regulated
learning, constructing beneficial motivational circumstances externally is likely to be unreliable.

– How to understand what you don’t believe: Metacognitive training prevents belief-biases in multiple text comprehension

Cogito, ergo sum

– Rene Descartes

A few students asked recently why the depiction of a popular figure differed from movie to movie. They wanted to know which figure was the actual representation. As what we know of this figure can only be constructed from words in historical and cultural sources, he was at once this and also that. Reality can be constructed.

There was or may have been a time when scrolls and scribes enjoyed sacred status. Books were the banks of knowledge and some have described how they were sometimes chained to shelves and for certain eyes only.

Some of these scribes or authors wrote books which we may term as authoritative or as a classic work on a subject. These, such as those in Abbe Faria’s possession, enlighten, liberate and their contents can be taken to be true without question.

We no longer live in an environment where information is a scarce and precious resource, zealously guarded by gatekeepers. There is a proliferation of sources often with both oft-quoted and contradictory viewpoints. Then and even more so now, the contents of a book are as or even more revelatory of a point of view than the truth itself.

This is relevant because, it helps us deal with contradictions. Oftentimes, an issue, especially a controversial one would be multi-faceted, nuanced and not amenable to simple cause-effect explanations. Such an approach would be described as reductionist. Reductionist approaches may be elegant, accessible and soothing but they are not adaptive in the sense of being compasses or torchlights in unknown or murky territory. Consider Kant’s hypothetical visitor.

Merely because something contradicts what is known thus far does not mean it does not belong with what has already been accumulated on a subject. The contradictions have to be resolved through verification and validation. This in fact, is what gives rise to the truth which sets one free a la the mind-boggling riddles or couplets of certain eastern doctrines.

Two researchers in the field of educational psychology from a German university investigated how to obtain a more comprehensive view of a controversial issue such as those we are confronted with presently through recognising and facing head-on these contradictions.

Self-directed learning dovetails with inquiry-based learning when a student has to navigate multiple sources to find answers to a problem or fulfil the knowledge requirements of some task. Students are not unlikely to find equally credible or credible seeming sources saying obviously or subtly but materially different things about the same matter. Research has found that material inconsistent with existing beliefs is likely to be given less weight if not ignored altogether.

These researchers have tested and now offer a way to reconcile contradictions without letting our beliefs get in the way so as to get a clear picture after the initial discomfort.

They begin with the well-documented and empirically tested premise that we tend to have a deeper understanding of texts which are consistent with our existing beliefs. These beliefs even if not directly relevant to the subject in concern, play a powerful mediating role in shaping understanding.

They then discuss reading strategies at the textual and metacognitive levels. In the main, they tested the hypothesis that metacognitive reading strategies would help resolve contradictions and increase understanding. They found evidence that as hypothesised such strategies did increase overall understanding.

While their experiments related to getting a comprehensive understanding after perusing several sources on a matter which contradicted each other, their findings on reading strategies on both the aforementioned levels are useful also for dealing with comprehension exercises, especially the visual text comprehension component.

Students are not unfamiliar with strategies at the level of the text. For example, students are taught in school that when dealing with comprehension exercises whether open-ended or multiple choice, they need to read the questions first. They then will have to read and re-tell.

The researchers considered the PQ4R strategy. This is what students are already doing. It refers to, Preview, Question, Read, Reflect, Recite, Review.

Preview is applicable to inquiry-based learning and it refers to when students gather some preliminary information on an issue or ask what they already know about something. Question refers to asking questions about the text. In open-ended comprehensions, Preview and Question can be taken to encompass the process of reading the questions first to form some hypothesis. There is one additional step which can make this stage even more effective.

Reflect can be done in a number of ways which include annotation (for specific purposes if possible) or by simply merging what is learned with what is already known.

Recite is what students know as re-tell. This requires working memory. The working memory will be hard pressed to function optimally when dealing with what this researcher terms as “belief-inconsistent” (Abendroth & Richter, 2021) information.

Review refers to looking through answers to the comprehension exercise to check if they fit with what the passage means.

They found that while strategies at the textual level increased understanding about both familiar and unfamiliar topics, they did not help to reconcile contradictions.

Metacognitive strategies did enable subjects to process and glean from texts which conflicted with existing beliefs. These strategies in a slightly modified form, were, becoming aware of beliefs, monitoring for information which conflict with existing beliefs and using prior knowledge to resolve the conflicting information.

Awareness is the bulk of metacognition. We tend to own our thoughts and identify with them. This is the process which will lead to wrong answers after having deducted correctly. Metacognition helps us recognise that our thoughts are distinct from us. It helps us monitor, verify and validate our thoughts and assumptions.

One reason students may be reluctant to question assumptions is that it is a jarring process which is taxing on the working memory and it says I am wrong. In visual text comprehension exercises for instance, this makes being open to alternative answers a daunting process.

Metacognition will help by saying it is the thought and not I which is wrong. This frees the working memory to be more analytical by decoupling identity from initial assumptions. Students can then consider more options without anticipating discomfort.

The researchers added that metacognition is more reliable than external feedback on a reasoning process and that students will benefit from training their metacognition.

There is no need to keep the door closed.

The Brain Dojo