The Study Strategies of Successful and Unsuccessful High School Students

Abstract

I examined the study strategies of successful and unsuccessful learners to determine if successful learners would differ in the quality of their information processing from unsuccessful learners. It was expected that good learners would use studying techniques requiring greater cognitive effort, such as notetaking, summarizing, and outlining. Three high school students in Grade 11 were studied as successful students; three unsuccessful students were studied as well. Each of the six participants was interviewed individually for a single, 1-hour session. During the session, students read and studied an article. A videotaped interview with the researcher followed reading and studying. The successful students were more active, purposeful, and flexible in their strategy use. Although the unsuccessful students were generally less efficient in their use of learning strategies, they were satisfied with their academic performance. That is, the unsuccessful students perceived themselves as successful learners, lacking self-knowledge of their inefficient strategy use.