Study strategies and beliefs about learning as a function of academic achievement and achievement goals

Abstract

Prior research by Hartwig and Dunlosky [(2012). Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(1), 126-134] has demonstrated that beliefs about learning and study strategies endorsed by students are related to academic achievement: higher performing students tend to choose more effective study strategies and are more aware of the benefits of self-testing. We examined whether students' achievement goals, independent of academic achievement, predicted beliefs about learning and endorsement of study strategies. We administered Hartwig and Dunlosky's survey, along with the Achievement Goals Questionnaire [Elliot, A. J., & McGregor, H. A. (2001). A 2 × 2 achievement goal framework. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 80, 501-519] to a large undergraduate biology course. Similar to results by Hartwig and Dunlosky, we found that high-performing students (relative to low-performing students) were more likely to endorse self-testing, less likely to cram, and more likely to plan a study schedule ahead of time. Independent of achievement, however, achievement goals were stronger predictors of certain study behaviours. In particular, avoidance goals (e.g., fear of failure) coincided with increased use of cramming and the tendency to be driven by impending deadlines. Results suggest that individual differences in student achievement, as well as the underlying reasons for achievement, are important predictors of students' approaches to studying.

Assessing students' use of optional online lecture reviews

“…This finding suggests that many students may have engaged in the suboptimal practice of cramming most of their studying into a few days. These observational data confirm those of a recent survey study showing that students self‐report doing most of their studying within a few days before the exam (Blasiman, Dunlosky, & Rawson, ; see also Geller et al, ). Previous research has shown that spacing study over several sessions often leads to better learning and retention than when studying is massed into fewer sessions (formally known as the spacing effect , or the distributed practice effect ; Carpenter, ; Dempster, ).…”

Do secondary school students make use of effective study strategies when they study on their own?

“…Another issue with prior research is that it is unclear whether the level at which students perform is related to their strategy use (Geller et al, ). In the Netherlands, where the current study was conducted, there are different levels within secondary school (prevocational education, general secondary education, and preuniversity education), which offers the opportunity to explore differences in strategy use between these levels.…”

Self-regulated spacing in a massive open online course is related to better learning

“…For example, in the lab, by simply changing the conditions of a task, researchers can make students appear to make the right decision to space their study [28][29][30][31] or to make the wrong decision to mass their study 32,33 . When asked directly about what they do or would do in their own learning, surveys show that people report that they tend not to return to previously studied materials [34][35][36][37][38] .…”