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1. Complex Dynamics of Epistemic Agency in a College Physics Lab Course

   Ian Descamps; Sophia Jeon; Rachel Scherr; Natasha Holmes; David Hammer (June 2023, Computersupported collaborative learning)

   Blikstein, P; Van Aalst, J; Kizito, R; Brennan, K (Ed.)

   We study students in a college physics lab course encountering a designed-for discrepancy between their data and the relevant physical model. We examine the moment-by- moment dynamics of the groups’ efforts at problematizing and sensemaking, with a specific focus on epistemic agency. Drawing from prior studies of agency – as it relates to learning (Damşa et al., 2010), inquiry (Keifert et al., 2018), and scientific practice (Pickering 1995) – we study the complex ways in which epistemic agency manifests (and doesn’t) in the students’ work. Our analysis suggests several influences on the students’ agency, including features of the social and material context as well as how the students frame what it is they are doing (Hammer et al., 2005), in the lab as a whole and in moments within it. The findings suggest implications and questions with respect to designing labs to support disciplinary practices. 

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2. The pretesting effect is robust throughout adulthood, but metacognitive beliefs about pretesting and challenge differ

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2025.102683  

   Yan, Veronica X; Rea, Stephany Duany; Sana, Faria (May 2025, Learning and Individual Differences)

   Pretesting—asking learners to try to answer questions about a topic before learning—results in better memory of that topic compared to simply studying the topic without taking a pretest. We investigated whether age and memory contentment moderate the benefit of pretesting, and whether judgments of pretesting effectiveness varied across adulthood (N = 273, age range: 18-82). The pretesting effect was not moderated by either factor. Metacognitive judgments, however, varied by age. Younger participants were more likely to appreciate the benefits of pretesting than middle-aged and older adults. In Study 2 (N = 296, age range: 18-83), our mixed-methods approach showed converging results: The older the participant, the less likely they were to appreciate the benefits of errors and think that pretesting would be effective for them. These results suggest that although the pretesting effect appears to be robust throughout adulthood, metacognitive beliefs differ. 

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3. Problems of Problem-Based Learning: Exploring Meta-Agency in Problem-Based Cybersecurity Learning in College Education

   Park, Jongchan; Deng Yuli; Agrawal Garima; Techawitthayachinda Ratrapee; Chen Ying-Chih; Huang Dijiang; Liu Huan (April 2023, Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association 2023)

   In college cybersecurity education, problem-based learning has been introduced to promote student agency in solving a complex problem. However, a dilemma of balancing the student agency persist and previous research has focused on students’ cognitive, metacognitive, and regulatory to enhance the efficacy of PBL. Given the importance of students’ self-awareness of their agency, this study suggests a concept of meta-agency as an essential learner characteristic that influences the effectiveness of student agency in PBL. Four dimensions of meta-agency, perceptions of productive struggle, expectation alignment between instructor and students, strategies for regulating agency, and familiarity with PBL tasks, were qualitatively explored with student interview data. Features of meta-agency and how students’ meta-agency level develop through cybersecurity PBL sessions were further investigated. 

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4. Will monkeys wager differently as a function of stimulus fluency or when making immediate versus delayed judgements of memory?

   https://doi.org/10.31820/pt.34.1.5  

   Friedlein, Kathleen; Beran, Michael J (April 2025, Psychological Topics)

   Nonhuman animals can engage in forms of metacognitive control and monitoring processes. However, very little testing of the relation between fluency and metacognition has been done in animals, and little research has assessed memory performance in relation to animals making immediate versus delayed judgments of their memory. Here, wagers made by monkeys during test trials served as a form of confidence measure of how well they could complete a memory test. These wagers occurred either after the delay interval between the sample presentation and the test (delayed judgments) or after the sample presentation but before the delay interval and the test (immediate judgments). Overall, no significant difference in performance was found between these two conditions. We also manipulated the fluency of stimuli by either contrasting small (low fluency) or large (high fluency) stimuli or by manipulating size and the degree to which stimuli were of similar perceptual classes (low fluency, harder to distinguish stimuli such as triangular shapes) or were dissimilar in color and shape (high fluency, clip art images). Although low fluency stimuli were remembered at lower levels, the monkeys showed no evidence of adjusting wagering behavior as a function of stimulus type. Thus, the present experiment showed no evidence that monkeys benefitted from delay of judgments of memory and no evidence of stimulus fluency affecting their confidence as measured by their wagering. Rather, most monkeys preferred consistent wagers across all trial types. This may indicate a metacognitive limitation or some other form of behavioral satisficing that led to suboptimal performance. 

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5. THE BELIEFS AND PRACTICES OF GRADUATE STUDENT TUTORS ENGAGED IN ONLINE TUTORING DURING THE PANDEMIC

   Mule’, T; Houston, S.; Piontek, J.; Webb, J.; Harrell-Williams, L. (November 2022, Proceedings of the forty-fourth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Lischka, A. E.; Dyer, E. B.; Jones, R. S.; Lovett, J. N.; Strayer, J.; & Drown, S. (Ed.)

   Many higher education institutions in the United States provide mathematics tutoring services for undergraduate students. These informal learning experiences generally result in increased final course grades (Byerly & Rickard, 2018; Rickard & Mills, 2018; Xu et al., 2014) and improved student attitudes toward mathematics (Bressoud et al., 2015). In recent years, research has explored the beliefs and practices of undergraduate and, sometimes graduate, peer tutors, both prior to (Bjorkman, 2018; Johns, 2019; Pilgrim et al., 2020) and during the COVID19 pandemic (Gyampoh et al., 2020; Mullen et al., 2021; Van Maaren et al., 2021). Additionally, Burks and James (2019) proposed a framework for Mathematical Knowledge for Tutoring Undergraduate Mathematics adapted from Ball et al. (2008) Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching, highlighting the distinction between tutor and teacher. The current study builds on this body of work on tutors’ beliefs by focusing on mathematical sciences graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) who tutored in an online setting during the 2020-2021 academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this study addresses the following research question: What were the mathematical teaching beliefs and practices of graduate student tutors participating in online tutoring sessions through the mathematics learning center (MLC) during the COVID-19 pandemic? 

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