When people make judgments of learning (JOLs) after studying paired associates, the process they engage in to monitor their learning can directly enhance learning for some types of material (Soderstrom et al. 2015). The current experiments investigated whether JOLs directly enhance learning educationally relevant texts. Across 5 experiments (N =…

This randomized controlled trial (RCT) aimed to test the efficacy of enhanced access to Cochrane Handbook (Handbook) recommendations for judging the 2011 Cochrane risk of bias (RoB) domains for improving the adequacy of RoB judgments. Parallel-group RCT with a 1:1 allocation ratio (N = 2271 per group) was conducted. Eligible participants were…

Problem definition in program planning and evaluation is rarely problematized. In this article, I discuss why the lack of problem problematization is itself problematic--in other words, why treating problems as self-evident can pose a risk for evaluation practice. Then, to help avoid such risks, I suggest Carol Bacchi's "What's the Problem…

Which behavioral and visual information do teachers rely on when judging relevant characteristics of their students and which cues should they rely on? Drawing on Brunswik's Lens Model (Perception and the representative design of psychological experiments, University of California Press, 1956. https://doi-org.bibliotheek.ehb.be/10.1525/9780520350519), we…

Different sources of assessment evidence are reviewed during International Baccalaureate (IB) grade awarding to convert marks into grades and ensure fair results for students. Qualitative and quantitative evidence are analysed to determine grade boundaries, with statistical evidence weighed against examiner judgement and teachers' feedback on…

Numerate people tend to make more informed judgments and decisions because they are more risk literate (i.e., better able to evaluate and understand risk). Do numeracy skills also help people understand regular science reporting from mainstream news sources? To address this question, we investigated responses to regular science reports (e.g.,…

Doctoral education is the primary time in which scholars learn about research methodologies and begin to develop their own research agendas and skills. Yet, to date, few research studies have examined graduate students' perceived value of, and access to, training in multiple research methodologies. The purpose of this study was to explore special…

Learning to make informed evaluative judgement of holistic competencies prepares students for well-rounded development on a lifelong and self-directed basis. However, a review of the literature reveals that empirical studies framed under evaluative judgement have not yet explicitly acknowledged the judgement of these competencies. If we are to…

This article explores the utility of mindfulness in the field of evaluation. Mindfulness is a translation of the ancient Indian word, "Sati," which means awareness, attention, and remembering. While definitions vary, a practical definition of mindfulness is present-moment awareness in an open and nonjudgmental manner. Mindfulness-based…

Integrating evidence from multiple sources to guide decisions is something humans do on a daily basis. Existing research suggests that not all sources of information are weighted equally in decision-making tasks, and that observers are subject to biases in the face of internal and external noise. Here we describe two experiments that measured…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder are thought to have a more local than global perceptual style. We used a novel paradigm to investigate how grouping-induced response biases in numerosity judgments depend on autistic-like personality traits in neurotypical adults. Participants judged the numerosity of clouds of dot-pairs connected by thin…

The assessment of media literacy is a complex task, which might attempt to reconcile a research field traditionally developed within a critical paradigm with the task of evaluating and quantifying media literacy competences through essentially quantitative methods. Despite the lack of consensus regarding how to evaluate and measure media literacy,…

How do people come to opposite causal judgments about societal problems, such as whether a public health policy reduced COVID-19 cases? The current research tests an understudied cognitive mechanism in which people may agree about what "actually" happened (e.g., that a public health policy was implemented and COVID-19 cases declined),…

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly increased capacity for producing textual, visual and auditory outputs, yet there are ongoing concerns regarding the quality of those outputs. There is an urgent need to develop students' evaluative judgement - the capability to judge the quality of work of self and others - in recognition of this…

Causal reasoning is a fundamental cognitive ability that enables individuals to learn about the complex interactions in the world around them. However, the mechanisms that underpin causal reasoning are not well understood. For example, it remains unresolved whether children's causal inferences are best explained by Bayesian inference or…