Introduction to special issue on studying

Abstract

Twelve years ago, William Rohwer (1984) extended an invitation to educational researchers to forge an educational psychology of studying on par with the field's interest in and investigations of instruction. Rohwer argued that students are increasingly expected to learn independently as they proceed from elementary to secondary to post-secondary schools. Col lege students, Rohwer pointed out, are expected to spend at least twice as much time studying as they spend attending class. Rohwer contended that there was considerable work to be done but that the work was worthwhile and necessary. The phenomena of study, then, invite a commitment to an arduous, complex and protracted effort, an affair more like a house-raising than a house-warming. Yet, if differences in the effectiveness of study are a primary source of differences in educational success, the invitation to build an educational psychology of studying is surely worth accepting. By all indications, Rohwer's invitation was widely accepted. A special interest group on studying was formed in the American Educational Re search Association. Investigators examined social, motivational, and strate gic aspects of studying under the rubric of self-regulated learning (e.g., Pintrich and DeGroot, 1990; Zimmerman, 1989, 1990). And, texts detailing how to study flourished (e.g., Gardner and Jewler, 1989; Longman and At