Study Skills Course Research Articles

The effect of motivational scaffolding on procrastinators’ distance learning outcomes

The purpose of the research was to determine experimentally whether the addition of features to enhance learner motivation and collaboration, termed motivational scaffolding, to the “traditional” distance learning design improved engagement, and performance, particularly among procrastinators. Two versions of a web-based five-credit study skills course, both covering the same content and sharing all features save for the scaffolding, were compared: traditional-distance, and motivationally-scaffolded distance, during each of two terms. Motivational scaffolding consisted of using chat to run study skills support groups, where students were helped to stay on task, and instructor office hours. Students were classified as either high or low procrastinators, and randomly assigned to each version, and two instructors alternated between versions taught from one term to the other. Results showed that procrastinating students, for whom the lack of structure of distance learning may be problematic, performed better in the motivationally-scaffolded version than the traditional, while non-procrastinating students performed equally in both.

Developmental College Student Self-Regulation: Results from Two Measures

This study compared 34 lower-achieving (developmental) first-time college students' self-reported self-regulation strategies from a Likert scale to those they reported in structured interviews. Likert scales have offered convenient administration and evaluation and have been used to identify what and how learners study. The reported study activity of regular admission college students' has predicted their subsequent college achievement; in the same study, responses did not support concurrent validity for the lower-achieving students (Nist, Mealey, Simpson, & Kroc, 1990). College students who failed to meet regular admission requirements enrolled in 2 sections of a college study skills course reported significantly different strategy use between their Likert and interview responses on five of the fifteen strategies classified by each of the measures.

A needs-based study and examination skills course improves students' performance

Adult learning theory suggests that learning is most effective when related to need, when driven by the learner and when it is flexible. We describe the effect of an educational intervention that was driven by student need, and largely designed by students. We undertook a needs assessment of fifth year medical students' study needs. Based on this, we helped them design a course to meet these needs. This was predominantly related to study skills and a practice objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). We evaluated the course by asking for student opinion and by measuring the effect on student performance in a high stakes medical school examination (written examination and OSCE). Despite the course being run voluntarily and in after-hours sessions, 80-90% of the medical student class attended each session. Student performance on the end of year examinations was significantly enhanced in the year of the intervention, compared with previous years and with students from other schools sitting identical examinations in the same year. Learning activities that are directly based on student needs, that focus on study and examination techniques, and that are largely student-driven, result in effective and valuable outcomes.

Concepts in Biology: A Supplemental Study Skills Course Designed to Improve Introductory Students' Skills for Learning Biology

Concepts in Biology: A Supplemental Study Skills Course Designed to Improve Introductory Students' Skills for Learning Biology

Concepts in Biology: A Supplemental Study Skills Course Designed To Improve Introductory Students' Skills for Learning Biology

Most instructors teaching introductory biology have become increasingly aware that many students come to their classes ill-prepared to succeed in science. Frustrated by students' lack of preparedness but constrained by an information explosion in the sciences with no corresponding change in the amount of teaching time, we often continue on with business as usual, accepting that many of our students will do poorly or drop out. Undoubtedly, if we maintain high standards, some students will fail each semester. As we struggled with under-prepared students who tried so hard but were not able to succeed, we began to ask ourselves this question: Is there something that we can do to reduce the number of students who fail introductory biology?

Evaluating ADAPT: a hybrid instructional model combining Web-based and classroom components

The purpose of this evaluative study was to determine the effectiveness of a hybrid instructional model, called ADAPT (Active Discovery And Participation through Technology) that combines the important features of traditional classroom instruction (classroom, instructor, textbook) with those of computer-mediated instruction (learning by performing rather than listening, frequent assessment and feedback). In combination, the model is distinguished from either distance or traditional instruction, and can be employed in campus computer labs. Both the ADAPT model and the traditional approach were used to teach a 10-week study skills course, the objective of which was to improve students' academic performance, as measured by grade point averages. Results of using the two approaches and comparing them with one another and to a matched control group experiencing neither yielded an overall significant difference as well as significant differences between each condition. Students taught using ADAPT achieved the highest GPAs, relative to past performance, while those not taught achieved the lowest, with conventionally taught students in between. The hybridity of the ADAPT model seemed to provide students both structure and opportunity for involvement in the learning process.

Effects of Study Skills Programs on the Academic Behaviors of College Students

Students in a comprehensive developmental studies program (study skills course and required attendance at tutoring sessions) were compared to students enrolled in a study skills course and to a control group with regard to grade point average, faculty perceptions of academic behaviors, and faculty perceptions of behavioral changes. Students in the comprehensive program exceeded their predicted grade point average significantly more than the comparison groups, and instructors reported a greater number of positive behaviors on the part of these students in their classes. A significant correlation between grade point average and the instrument used to elicit faculty perceptions indicated the validity of this type of assessment in measuring successful academic behaviors.

AN ANNOTATED CHRONICLE OF A. STUDENT'S INTRODUCTION TO LEARNING STRATEGIES FOR MATHEMATICS

ABSTRACT The philosophy and practice of a mathematics study skills course are explained through the narrative of a fictional student. The chronicle provides a rich description of the experience, and the numerous footnotes provide the ideas and justification behind the design of the course.

The establishment of student needs: an important internal factor affecting course outcome

Ensuring effectiveness in teaching and learning requires that those features of a programme threatening maximal student achievement be identified. Learner involvement in establishing these features is important in ensuring programme success and student motivation.This study aimed to identify these features through assessment of self-perceived needs and concerns, and to establish strategies for their resolution. A survey instrument, developed from a pilot study, was administered to secondand third-year medical students. Students were asked to identify and rank the 10 needs or concerns that caused most distress for them and suggest solutions.Both groups identified content overload as their most serious concern followed by learning problems and time management. Other problems for junior students were failure to cope with work and fear of failure. Senior students identified financial matters, time constraints on recreation and sport and the general medical school atmosphere as problems.The commonest solutions offered were: introduction of a study skills course; curriculum rearrangement; provision of transport; and improvement in lecturing skills. Many of the data are transferable and useful for the general understanding of student needs and concerns in teaching institutions.

A Comparison of Portfolio, Performance, and Traditional Assessment in the Middle School

Traditional measures of achievement, including standardized tests, potentially misjudge student abilities and may lead to inappropriate educational decisions. Key ideas developed in class are disregarded during testing while valuable time is devoted to “teaching the test.” Authentic assessments, criterion-referenced tasks performed in context, present a viable alternative. Authentic assessments are interrelated with curricula and can improve teaching and learning.This study is concerned with portfolio and performance assessment. Sixth-grade students enrolled in an Organizational Study Skills course to guide them in making the transition from elementary to middle school compiled portfolios of their work or completed projects to display skills learned in class. The results suggest that authentic assessments may provide a method with which we can “save” those students who traditionally have been regarded as failures and passed through the system until they drop out or graduate without adequate skills or a sense of accomplishment. Due to the nature of these assessments, the results can be used to guide curriculum and lesson planning and highlight areas to be focused on in the classroom.

The Aesthetic Role of Literature in the Middle School Curriculum

Recently in a career exploration and study skills course for students in grades 9-12, class discussion centered on the importance of reading. Students were talking about the reading skills and strategies they used and about what they liked to read. Toward the end of the discussion, one of the boys, a senior, raised his hand and asked in a very serious tone: Hey, why do people read, anyway? He was asking about the payoff' in reading; he was ask ing because, unfortunately, he did not know. How many middle school students know what this 17-year-old high school student did not know? How many of them know what payoff reading provides, or that there even is one? Middle school students' inter ests and attitudes are volatile. Their attitudes toward

A study of the performance of Developmental Studies students in the principles of economics

This study assesses the performance of Developmental Studies students in the principles of economics. The null hypothesis is that once demographic and academic variables are taken into account, completion of a developmental studies course(s) contributes nothing to the probability of success in a principles of economics course. The study analyzes a sample of 1,053 principles of economics students during the 1989 academic year. A logit regression model is used to estimate the probability of successfully completing a course in the principles of economics. The study finds that the completion of the Developmental Study Skills course is an important determinant of the probability of success in the principles of economics courses.

Simulating academic research: one approach to a study-skills course

Simulating academic research: one approach to a study-skills course

Setting up a study skills course

Setting up a study skills course

Career and Study Skills Information: Who Says What Can Alter Message Processing

Recommendations and appeals that are generally proattitudinal (already viewed as positive by the receiver) are common in social and counseling environments. Recent research suggests that clients may readily accept proattitudinal recommendations without much thought about a communicator's supportive arguments, and, consequently, that their acceptance has weak or no behavioral significance. Little is known, however, about the factors that may cause people to think about the personal ramifications of the arguments offered in support of proattitudinal recommendations. A pilot study and experiment are reported, indicating that a communicator of high rather than low credibility enhances students' responsiveness to the cogency of the arguments offered in support of a personally involving, proattitudinal recommendation concerning the institution of a career exploration and study skills course.

The Topic-Comment Technique to Study Expository Text

The topic-comment technique fosters deep processing and also functions as a support strategy. Its effect, appreciated during study skills courses, was tested under experimental conditions in the present study. Training in the technique improved the quality of the notes taken by the subjects while studying a text; subjects also reported a perceived change in text studying abilities. Taking into account the results of a placebo training, it was concluded that the topic-comment technique derives its effect partly from more general characteristics of study skills training and partly from the specific instrumental value of the technique. The readiness of freshmen in higher education to adopt a new study technique to replace obsolete ones is discussed.

Alternatives to the behavioural technicist conception of study skills

The ‘what’ and ‘how’ of study skills programmes are critiqued and alternatives suggested. Due to the absence of information about higher level learning, study skills courses have traditionally focused on study behaviours, rather than upon the cognitive processes involved in mastering complex material. By providing knowledge about the cognitive skills and strategies involved in the acquisition and organization of high level learning, information-processing could form the basis of future learning-skills programmes. Infusing learning skills into the curriculum from a phenomenological-critical theory perspective, means that the study skills counsellor becomes a social change agent aiming for the enlightenment and emancipation of students and lecturers. This is a radical departure from the behavioural-technician remedying a deficit group in a special programme or study laboratory.

A short study-skills course for the new entrants to the medical school.

A short course in study-skills was conducted recently for the new entrants at two of the medical schools in Sri Lanka. This course was designed to help students to understand how different students learn, the problem of retention and forgetting, group learning habits and the need for developing self-directed lifelong learning. The course proved to be very popular with the students but its effectiveness would also depend on the school's curriculum and the way the teachers would continue to teach and evaluate students.

Reviews

Reviews Get access Assignments: An Intermediate Language Practice and Study Skills Course K. van Werkum, G. Van Stokkum, R. Druce Collins 1981 111pp 2 cassettes ISBN 370046 1 Richard J. Walker Richard J. Walker Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar ELT Journal, Volume 37, Issue 1, January 1983, Pages 98–99, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/37.1.98 Published: 01 January 1983 Article history Received: 01 June 1982 Published: 01 January 1983

Establishing a Study Skills Course for Sixth‐Form Students

Summary This paper describes the establishment of a study skills course for sixth‐form students at the writer's school. It considers some of the ideological and methodological issues which determined the nature of the course. The importance of autonomous study, and study problems experienced by sixth‐form students are seen as justification for the course. Relevant research, both relating study skills to attainment and evaluating study skills teaching, has been inconclusive to date. It has been conducted mainly with students in the post‐19 age group. The views of students, teachers, selected heads of department, and the authors of study skills handbooks were synthesized to determine 11 study skills to be developed. The decision to provide a centrally run course is explained. Alternative methodological approaches are considered, and the decision to use structured discussion groups as the basic methodology of the course is justified. The relationship envisaged between the central course and study skills teac...