Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Study skills;

Abstract

This study was undertaken to determine whether the completion of a study strategies course had an effect on college students' grade point averages and attrition rate. The 50 experimental subjects were freshmen students at the University of Northern Iowa enrolled (during the fall semester of 1985) in "Effective Study Strategies", a non-credit six-week course offered by the Office of Learning and Instruction. A comparison group of 50 freshmen students, also from fall semester, 1985, and who did not take the study strategies course, were matched to each of the 50 experimental students on the basis of gender, ACT composite scores, and high school percentile rank. The cumulative GPA for each student was collected during the following semesters: fall, 1985; spring, 1986; fall, 1986; and spring, 1987. Mean GPAs were computed for both groups at each semester, and for overall cumulative GPAs for both groups. Also, due to past research indicating improved GPA for students who were academically "at risk," mean semester and overall cumulative GPAs were computed for those students in the experimental group with a fall, 1985, GPA less than 2.80, and the matched control students. To provide further information, mean semester and overall cumulative GPAs were also computed for those students in the experimental group with a fall, 1985, GPA greater than 2.79, and the matched control students. Finally, it was determined which students in both groups were still enrolled after two years (fall, 1987) and who were not. The following were the findings in this study: 1. There was no significant difference between mean semester and overall cumulative GPAs for the experimental and control groups. 2. No significant difference was found between the groups' mean semester and overall cumulative GPAs when comparing only those experimental students with a fall, 1985, mean GPA less than 2.80, to the matched control subjects. 3. There was a significant difference between fall, 1985, mean GPAs when comparing only those students in the experimental group who had a fall, 1985, mean GPA greater than 2.79, to the matched control subjects. 4. No significant difference was found between these groups at the following three semesters, however, although the 1.-value did approach significance when comparing mean overall cumulative GPAs. 5. There was a higher attrition rate in the group of study strategies students than in the control group. The results of the present study implied that the study strategies course had little or no effect on college students' GPA and attrition rate. However, it must be kept in mind that assessing only GPA is very limited as a measure of academic performance as there are many factors which influence achievement. Other variables, such as personality type, motivation, and anxiety, should be considered in future research.

Year of Submission

1985

Degree Name

Specialist in Education

Department

Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations

First Advisor

Barry J. Wilson

Second Advisor

Wayne A. King

Third Advisor

Ralph Scott

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

1987

Object Description

1 PDF file (62 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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