A Region of Proximal Learning model of study time allocation

A Region of Proximal Learning model is proposed emphasizing two components to people's study time allocation, controlled by different metacognitive indices. The first component is choice, which is further segmented into two stages: (1) a decision of whether to study or not and (2) the order of priority of items chosen. If the people's Judgments of Learning (JOLs) are sufficiently high that they believe they know the items already, they will choose to not study. If they do choose to study, the order is from that which they believe is almost known to that which they believe is more difficult (high JOL to low JOL). The second component is perseverance, with emphasis on the rule for stopping studying once study has begun on an item. We propose that people use a previously unexplored process-oriented metacognitive marker: their judgments of the rate of learning (jROLs), to decide when to stop. When learning is proceeding quickly and the jROL value is high they continue studying. When the jROL approaches zero, and their subjective assessment indicates learning is at a standstill they stop. The extant literature bearing on this model is reviewed, and eight new experiments, all of which support the model, are presented. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.