Bringing a Learning Strategies Project to Scale in a First-Year Seminar

Abstract

This paper describes the impact of a learning strategies intervention conducted in first-year seminar courses that, 1) disaggregated components of academic skills into meaningful components for first-year students, 2) taught students academic skills within an authentic context, and 3) scaled-up the intervention for implementation at a programmatic level. This work is grounded in research on metacognition, self-regulation, and motivation, as well as literature on the academic transition to college. Results reinforced earlier findings indicating significant improved use of metacognitive learning strategies, even when the intervention was expanded to include multiple instructors in multiple course sections. Further research is needed to determine the precise factors precipitating improvement when the project was brought to scale.