Elicited Learning Strategy through Students’ Mal-intended Notes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of using the notes prepared by learners as memory assistance sheet. More specifically, the study sought to find out the effect of using such materials as a learning strategy on reducing their stress and panic before final examination and their attitude towards performance on the final examination. The participants were 106 ELT students in the European University of Lefke, Turkey. It had been felt that most of the students in this group were more inclined to cheat. The teacher made them use learning strategies by using made notes before exam. At the end of the fall semester of 2009, an attitude questionnaire was administered to elicit the students’ thoughts about the effectiveness of such strategy in their final examination results. This study was a pilot study and the researcher tried in an attempt to predict an appropriate sample size and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale research project. Data from the questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS software, the Cronbach's alpha reliability was estimated for the questionnaire. The Bartlett's chi-square was performed to clarify the homogeneity of the variance. The tentative results of the study indicated that the reliability was .84 suggesting that the items have relatively high internal consistency. For a pilot study and with the present limited number of subjects the results were promising. It should be emphasized that the main study will be done again by revised Items and when administered to a larger sample, better results are expected. Therefore, it is hoped that ELT instructors could benefit from the findings of the current study by attempt using students’ notes as an effective learning strategy. Such a strategy may result in engaging the students in using their notes in a positive way as a learning strategy before their final examinations.Click