Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Study skills; College students -- Attitudes;

Abstract

This study was undertaken to identify the students' learning deficits and the effects of learning strategy training on their perceptions of reading and study efficiency as well as their ability to transfer the learning skills in realistic context like content area courses. The 143 subjects were college students enrolled in six sections of 20:040 (Nature and Conditions of Learning) during the spring semester of 1986 at the University of Northern Iowa. Out of this number, 27 volunteered to undergo "Effective Study Strategies," a non-credit 6-week training course offered by the Office of Learning and Instruction. These students constituted the experimental group, while the rest (N = 116) served as the control group. The following were the findings in this study: A. The respondents indicated deficiency in information-processing and study strategies. They needed help to organize, integrate, elaborate and encode materials for retention. Specifically, these learning strategies involved skills that a learner uses to actively process information when listening, reading or preparing for a test. Overall, the students' learning and study problems were not considered severe, they rated themselves between average or slightly above average. B. The experimental group (with skill training) showed significant positive changes in their perception of reading and study efficiency after undergoing learning strategy training, while the control group remained relatively the same. C. There was no significant correlation between the students' test scores and amount of time spent studying the course, nor was there a significant correlation between the students' test scores and the quality of strategy application as perceived by the respondents. D. On the basis of students' test scores, no evidence was found to support the contention that learning strategy training produced improvement in students' ability to learn and remember academic materials. This statement however must be viewed with caution because of the difficulty involved in assessing skill transfer due to the interference of some uncontrolled variables like type or length of tests given to students which may have affected test reliability. E. The experimental group perceived the learning strategy training program helpful and beneficial to their academic work. They reported using more learning strategies in their classes and better study habits and learning attitudes.

Year of Submission

1986

Degree Name

Specialist in Education

Department

Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations

First Advisor

Barry J. Wilson

Second Advisor

Wayne A. King

Comments

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Date Original

1986

Object Description

1 PDF file (92 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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Education Commons

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