Measuring study time distributions: Implications for designing computer-based courses

Abstract

In both traditional lecture-test courses and courses delivered over the World-Wide Web (WWW), both beginning and experienced college students reported studying almost exclusively just before exams. Automatic measures (computer records, WWW page hits, and electronic mail archives) confirmed the self-reported distributions of study times, Weeklydeadlines produced weekly volleys oftaking on-line quizzes, a pattern that was reflected in self-reports of study times. However, on-line study materials were used primarily for review for regularly scheduled in-class exams. Thus, regardless of course format, students engaged in massed practice and did not experience study aids at appropriate times. Computer technology provides new forms of learning for students, as well as opportunities for instructors to observe patterns of student study time. Management of instructional contingencies will be necessary to bring students into contact with the rich cognitive aids enabled by technology.As the world's population increases and as the demographics of student populations change, there is an increasing need to rework our educational practices to make them more effective and efficient (see, e.g., Barr & Tagg, 1995;Bork, 1997). Advances in computers and information technologies are seen to be a cornerstone of educational change (see, e.g., Bork, 1997), and emerging technologies now offer the hope ofproviding rich learning aids to students at a distance (Dede, 1996). However, anecdotal lore suggests that what students actually do is often at odds with what the instructor intends them to do. The data reported in this paper were gathered in differently formatted courses and confirm the suspicion that students behave in ways that do not bring them into contact with the instructional activities and cognitive aids that are produced for them. Traditional classroom contingencies encourage massed practice-for example, resulting in concentration ofstudy and course work just prior to scheduled exams. Thus, common educational practices and students' adaptations to them threaten to blunt the impact of new educational technology.Students' use ofcourse materials was measured in three types ofcourses taught at a large public university (Texas Tech). Three cases from psychology are presented: (1) traditional lecture-test courses at both beginning and advanced levels, (2) report ofstudy times to automatically collected date-timestamped electronic records of computer-based course work. This report describes the characteristics ofthe studied courses, summarizes the measures and results, and concludes with some implications for the design ofinstruction that uses computers. CASE I Self-Reports of Study Time in a Traditional Lecture-Test Class MethodA three-item paper-and-pencil questionnaire was developed in order to gather self-reports of total estimated study time, to determine how students distributed their study time, to establish whether they thought that their study behaviors differed from their peers' study times, and to determine how students' ...

Evaluation of a Web-based introductory psychology course: II. Contingency management to increase use of on-line study aids

“…Instead, they used them for last-minute reviews. Such "cramming" behaviors, as noted by Taraban et al (1999), are counterproductive for learning.…”

“…) The narrower focus in the present article is on effects of instructional contingencies on student on-line study behaviors, and on how such behaviors affect student learning. The present study was motivated by the report by Taraban, W S. Maki, and Rynearson (1999), who compared student study behaviors across three college courses that varied in technology use. One course was taught with the traditional lecture-test method.…”

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In a Web-basedgeneral psychology course, students were observed to postpone use of on-line study aids until 2 days prior to examinations, thus negating any influence of advance organizers (Taraban, Maki, & Rynearson, 1999). Weattempted to modify this behavior by providing course credit in the form of short quizzes as rewards for using on-line study aids to preview each chapter.

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Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement?

“…In fact, in a popular survey of learning strategies (i.e., the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire), the question most relevant to self-testing (#55, "I ask myself questions to make sure I understand the material…") was not statistically correlated with course grades (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991). Moreover, the performance benefits of some strategies are often largest after longer retention intervals (e.g., Roediger & Karpicke, 2006), and hence their contributions to exam performance may be limited by many students' propensity to cram the night before tests (Taraban et al, 1999). Second, even if recommended strategies are an effective means of improving GPA, it is possible that successful students achieve their success in spite of (1) using the same pattern of strategies as low performers or (2) using even poorer strategy options.…”

“…Some study strategies-such as rereading text materials and cramming for tests-are commonly endorsed by students (e.g., Karpicke, Butler, & Roediger, 2009;Taraban, Maki, & Rynearson, 1999), even though they may not always yield durable learning. Other strategies-like self-testing-have been demonstrated to be quite effective (Roediger & Butler, 2011), but are mentioned less frequently when students report their strategies (e.g., Karpicke et al, 2009).…”