| Sumario: | Background: When watching educational online videos, learners need to determine whether the videos' contents are suitable for learning. Whereas this may induce metacognitive monitoring processes, it may also distract learners from the learning materials. Objectives: In the current set of experiments, we investigated whether asking participants to rate the suitability of three educational videos to impart knowledge (both experiments) and enabling participants to pause the video (Experiment 2) affects learning. Methods: Experiment 1 was conducted in the laboratory with a sample of university students. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions (rating task vs. viewing task). Experiment 2 was conducted online. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions resulting from the two factors task (rating task vs. viewing task) and pause button (available vs. not available). Results and Conclusion: In Experiment 1, we observed detrimental effects of the rating task on learning outcomes, but more accurate judgements of learning. In Experiment 2, we did not find any effects of the rating task on learning outcomes and the accuracy of the participants' judgements of learning. However, the inclusion of a pause button did result in more accurate judgements of learning. Further, exploratory analyses revealed that older participants reported higher levels of intrinsic and germane cognitive load than the younger participants. This increased effort only translated into better learning outcomes in the condition in that participants could pause the video. Thus, age is introduced as a potential boundary condition that should be investigated in instructional design research. Lay Description: What is currently known about the subject matter?: Metacognitive monitoring and control are important for learning.It is yet unknown whether rating videos' suitability to convey knowledge affects metacognitive monitoring and learning.Pause buttons in dynamic presentations may facilitate learning.Researchers argue that available pause buttons help learners to avoid cognitive overload and induce monitoring processes. What this paper adds?: We investigated whether a task to rate videos' suitability to convey knowledge and the availability of a pause button improve metacognitive monitoring and learning outcomes.Whereas the rating task increased the accuracy of participants' judgements of learning but decreased learning outcomes in Experiment 1, there were no effects of the rating task in Experiment 2.The availability of a pause button benefitted learning outcomes for older participants, but not for younger participants.The pause button increased the accuracy of participants' judgements of learning independent of age. Implications of study findings for practitioners: Rating the suitability of learning materials to impart knowledge should be disentangled from the actual learning phase.It is useful to consider potential learners' age when applying instructional design principles.
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