DOES A GENERAL MONITORING SKILL EXIST

Two experiments investigated whether monitoring is better characterized as a domain-specific or a domain-general phenomenon. In Experiment 1, college students' performance and discrimination accuracy were not correlated across 8 different domains, whereas confidence and judgment bias were. With tests matched on all salient dimensions except content, in Experiment 2, students' performance, confidence, discrimination, and bias were correlated across all or most domains. In addition, confidence was correlated even after the effect of performance was removed. These findings lend qualified support to the domain-general hypothesis, which states that monitoring within a specific domain is governed by general metacognitive processes in addition to domain-specific knowledge. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed, with particular attention given to the origin and development of the general monitoring skill.