Wider den Teufelskreis des Misserfolgs. Metakognitive Strategien erhöhen Erfolgszuversicht beim Lernen

This article, which emanates from the KLASSIC project funded by the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research, explores whether the conveyance of metacognitive techniques effectively boost confidence in one’s own learning effort, thus helping escape the vicious cycle of expectations of failure and failure itself (in this case: older adults in everyday settings void of problems). The empirical study shows that tools such as self-surveys, paired problem-solving, learning diaries or portfolios can reduce attribution of the causes of failures and bring about a qualitative improvement in learning. Lower performers as well as high performers are convinced that they can deal with learning processes in an efficient way at the end of test courses.