Student Approaches to Learning in Aviation Contexts

Abstract

Self-regulated learning is an important element of student performance and has been found to be linked with content domains. Aviation courses are complex yet serve as the foundation for student success in the flight environment. Since it is critical that students master the content, it is important to determine how students approach learning in these courses. Participants in this study completed a survey consisting of course-related selected-response questions, and open-ended questions focusing on their study habits. Results of the study portray an interesting insight into the learning strategies used by collegiate aviation students. Analyses appear to indicate that learning techniques may need to be improved to promote more successful learning in these types of courses. Improving Learning in Aviation Contexts Students entering collegiate aviation programs with the dream of becoming an airline pilot face unique educational challenges. Learning to operate sophisticated modern aircraft equipped with advanced technologies in the flight environment places intense academic requirements on students. The thrill of flight alone does not necessarily carry students through difficult scientific and technical content. Traditional aviation curricula are comprised ofboth classroom and flight components. Before students can perform effectively in the flight environment, it is imperative that they have a thorough understanding of the various aspects of flight. In general, the classroom component is designed to provide students with the principles underlying the application oftechnicalknowledge as well as information regarding meteorology, physics, governmental regulations, air traffic control and operations within the national airspace. Because of the depth and complexity of the subject matter, students need to use learning and comprehension monitoring strategies that will enable them to become cognitively engaged. They need to invest effort to make connections, elaborate, translate, organize and reorganize in order to think and process deeply. For many, the subject matter covered is unfamiliar, and unlike any topics they may have encountered during their high-school years. The classroom component, however, plays a critical role in providing the student with a strong foundation of knowledge. To be effective, aviation academic programs must ensure that the educational process involves an in-depth, effective transfer of knowledge across a broad spectrum of aviation subjects (Karp, Turney, Green, Sitler, Bishop, & Niemczyk, 2002). As in most collegiate classrooms, aviation classrooms consist of a variety of learners some struggling, some strategic and some exhibiting characteristics of either fiom time to time. Students that struggle have difficulty learning and remembering; much that they encounter is perplexing and fiustmtiug. If they do not perform successfully on a task, they may experience feelings of defeat, discouragement, and even apathy. On the other hand, students that are strategic seem to learn rapidly and with apparent ease. They approach instructional tasks with a high degree of confidence that they can accomplish the task. They understand that learning is an active process and they must take responsibility for doing it. Strategic learners are actively engaged with the material, and have some awareness of when they are learning it, and maybe more importantly, when they are not. They look at learning as a process they control (Eggen & Kauchak, 1999; Weinstein & Hume, 1998). In general, most educational activities are teacherdirected with students attempting to cany out the instructional activity using the learning strategies they know. Unfortunately, many students have a limited set of Page 19 JAAER, Fall2008 1 Niemczyk: Student Approaches to Learning in Aviation Contexts Published by ERAU Scholarly Commons, 2008