Short metacognitive prompts—like “minute papers”—are simple enough to be widely adopted by instructors. But do they work? We investigate how they affect college students’ performance in quantitative (Physics) and qualitative (Psychology) courses, comparing classes which received metacognitive prompts to those that did not. We find significant improvement in performance in Psychology and borderline significant improvement in Physics. While the interventions did not raise students’ confidence, interviews with students revealed that the prompts helped them process course material and study for exams. This is one of few studies to directly compare the effectiveness of metacognitive prompts across disciplines.

简短的元认知提示（例如“会议记录”）非常简单，可以被教师广泛采用。但是他们起作用吗？我们比较接受元认知提示的班级和没有接受元认知提示的班级，研究他们如何影响大学生在定量（物理）和定性（心理学）课程中的表现。我们发现心理学的成绩有显着提高，物理学的成绩也有显着提高。尽管这些干预措施并未提高学生的自信心，但对学生的采访显示，这些提示帮助他们处理了课程材料并学习了考试。这是直接比较跨学科元认知提示有效性的少数研究之一。