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.Since a great deal of an adolescent's school life is devoted to studying texts, I am concerned as an educator about how students use strategies as they read and study. There has been a long history of interest in how students study and the strategies they use, such as notetaking, underlining, outlining, summarizing, question-generating, and so on. (Anderson & Armbruster, 1984;Baker & Brown, 1984;Brown & Day, 1983;Devine, 1987;Loranger, 1988;Pressley, Goodchild, Fleet, Zajchowski, & Evans, 1989). Study strategies, specific processes which students may use alone or in combination to learn content of the curriculum (Graham & Robinson, 1987), have been identified by groups such as the College Board as key 347 348Journal of Reading Behavior in learning how to learn (Marshak, 1979). A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (1983), also identified study strategies as essential throughout a student's school career, beginning in the early grades and continuing through high school.Although in the past learners were seen as passive participants in the act of learning (Durkin, 1978(Durkin, -1979Norman, 1980), effective learners are now seen as active information processors and synthesizers who use strategies to fit their needs and goals (Weinstein, Butterfield, Schmidt, & Poythress, 1982). Consistent with this current emphasis on process, the "how to" of learning, good teaching should include not only teaching students how to learn, but also teaching them how to remember, how to think, and how to motivate themselves (Weinstein & Mayer, 1985). Studying as an Interactive ProcessStudying is defined as a special form of reading. The way that studying differs from "ordinary reading" is that studying requires attentive, thoughtful examination of a subject or a problem. The learner is expected to perform a cognitive or procedural task in order to gain knowledge or skill. If a learner is to be successful at a task, he/she must be aware of the demands o...
The purpose of this research study was to determine whether students who were taught specific research-based strategies using a transactional strategies instruction (TSI) approach (Pressley, El-Dinary, Gaskins, Schuder, Bergman, Almasi, & Brown, 1992) would (a) improve in comprehension achievement, and (b) be more engaged during reading groups.Thirty-two fourth graders participated in an 8-week experiment. The treatment group was taught four comprehension strategies-predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing-following the TSI approach. The comparison group was conducted as a traditional reading group. Qualitative and quantitative data collected include: pre/post interviews, videotaped reading sessions, response journals, and scores on the comprehension section of the California Achievement Test, pretest/Form E, and posttest/Form F. The findings favor the strategies treatment and include observations of greater focus and engagement during reading groups, improved knowledge and use of strategies, and improved achievement in comprehension. Relevant BackgroundIt appears that not much progress has been made since Durkin first raised our level of consciousness regarding the status
Distance education programs are expanding to meet the needs of a growing population of adult learners. The interactive television (ITV) classroom, a relatively recent technological innovation made possible with compressed digital video (CDV) transmission, has been found to be an effective teaching tool with mature students. A review of the literature suggests that ITV, although in its infancy, has the potential to overcome the pedagogical difficulties inherent in more traditional distance education technology based on audio alone. The results of a recent study conducted in graduate education courses by the authors at the University of New Hampshire indicate that adult students have generally positive attitudes toward their ITV classes. Essential to the success of distance education programs which use ITV is the training of both professors and students who will be involved in this emerging technology.
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