NOVICE DRIVER SELF-MONITORING

There is a growing consensus that quality driver training approaches should encompass higher-level cognitive abilities, such as those involving metacognition, in anticipation that this may produce enduring effects on driving behaviour. One metacognitive ability, self-monitoring, has been shown in various educational contexts to be influential on subsequent learning achievement through the self-feedback generated. Self-monitoring of causal attributions assigned while explaining learning achievement is considered to be particularly important, as certain patterns of attributional thinking can be more adaptive to learning than others. While novice drivers, to varying extents, voluntarily self-monitor various aspects of their learning, some self-monitoring, such as on causal attributions, is best promoted by external prompting from an instructor while interacting with a learner driver. Work in progress by the author has involved on-going in-depth interviews and group discussions with a small sample of young novice drivers, with the aim of encouraging the drivers to self-monitor and assign causal attributions for their learning. The research aims to identify ways driving instruction can foster productive patterns of thinking, such as self-monitoring, already known to be influential on learning achievement.