"Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and metacognitive awareness o" by Kara R. Muscha

Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Jodi Price

Committee Member

Lauren Meaux

Committee Member

Jeffery Neuschatz

Research Advisor

Jodi Price

Subject(s)

Metacognition, Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Psychology of learning

Abstract

The present study examined knowledge updating abilities in individuals with and without ADHD when forced to metacognitively evaluate the effectiveness of different study strategies. Participants with and without ADHD were randomly assigned to either a spontaneous or a forced knowledge updating condition, with those in the latter condition being asked to keep track of encoding strategy-recall outcome results, but no additional instructions for those in the spontaneous condition. I expected that healthy control participants would show greater knowledge updating abilities than those with ADHD, the participants in the forced knowledge updating condition would show greater knowledge updating abilities than participants in the spontaneous updating condition, and healthy controls in the forced knowledge updating condition would show greater knowledge updating abilities than the ADHD individuals in the same condition. Knowledge updating of study strategy effectiveness was found where ADHD individuals in the forced knowledge updating condition showed greater knowledge updating than the control participants. The forced condition potentially promoted metacognitive abilities in ADHD participants. These results combine to suggest that ADHD individuals can show knowledge updating of study strategies if their metacognitive abilities are promoted in some way. Future research should investigate whether these results extend to a setting more similar to a college class.

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