Assessment preferences and their relationship to learning strategies and orientations

The study investigated inter- and intra-group differences in assessment preferences among students in two academic disciplines which differ in their educational environment through examining the relationships between assessment preferences and student learning orientations and strategies. The sample consisted of 85 engineering and 87 education students in a major university in Israel. The subjects were administered the MSLQ for measuring their motivated learning strategies and the API for measuring their assessment preferences. The results indicated that individual differences in assessment preferences overshadow disciplinary group differences and that differences in assessment preferences are to a relatively large extent related to learning strategies and orientations. Implications for adaptive assessment were discussed.     

The relationship of estimated learning potential to performance on a learning task and achievement

The Estimated Learning Potential (ELP), a score obtained through the System of Multicultural Pluralistic Assessment (SOMPA), is purported to be a more appropriate index of potential for socioculturally different children. Prior studies have suggested a lower correlation with academic achievement than that of the traditional IQ score. The validity of the ELP has, therefore, been questioned. This study attempted to determine whether the ELP or IQ score would be the better predictor of performance on a learning task for 31 black and 32 white EMR children. The learning task was presented in a test-teach-test paradigm. Results suggest that the ELP did not correlate more highly with learning task performance than did the IQ score. However, the ELP may be more differentially sensitive to declassifying black children as retarded. The validity and the social consequences of the use of the IQ, ELP, and performance, after teaching, on the learning task for classification decisions also are discussed.     

The relationship among prior knowledge,accessing learning supports,learning outcomes,and game performance in educational games

Educational technology research and development - In-game learning supports aim to help students solve game levels (i.e., game-related supports), and connect to underlying content (i.e.,...     

Approaches to Studying: age,gender and academic performance

A total of 245 business studies students (115 females and 130 males) responded to the Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory (RASI). Consistent with earlier studies, the purposes of the present study were (i) to examine some of the psychometric properties of the RASI; (ii) to investigate whether the RASI was predictive of academic success; and (iii) to investigate the effects of gender, age and programme of study on approaches to studying. The data were analysed using principal components factor analysis. The resulting fit of the RASI subscales to the hypothesised structure was good, thus providing support for the notions of deep, surface and strategic approaches and the lack of direction and academic self‐confidence orientations. The reliability of the ‘lack of direction’ subscale was low. The RASI's ability to predict academic performance investigated using a range of learning performance measures. These data were further analysed in terms of degree programme. Subjects’ mean scores on each of the scales were analysed in terms of age and gender. This revealed a number of significant effects. These findings, and the use of the RASI, are discussed in terms of their implications for the requirements for increased learner autonomy in further and higher education.     

Flattening generalization gradients, context, and perceptual learning

The present research investigated the effects of physical context change and perceptual learning on generalization. In a video game, participants learned to suppress their mouse-clicking behavior in the presence of one stimulus (AX). Generalization was observed between the AX stimulus and another stimulus (BX) that was designed to be similar. When testing was conducted in a context different from that in which AX was used in training, responding to AX was attenuated, and responding to BX was enhanced. That is, the generalization gradient flattened. The latter effect was only evident in groups for which generalization had been reduced through a preexposure manipulation believed to produce perceptual learning. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the increase in generalization observed in the first experiment was due to the context change between the preexposure and test rather than to a change between the conditioning and test contexts. Implications for flattening generalization gradients and mechanisms of perceptual learning are discussed.     

初中生学习自我监控、人格特征与学业成绩关系

在中学阶段,学习是学生的主要任务,而学业成绩高低是衡量其学习任务完成情况的重要标准。个体的学业成绩受到自我监控和人格特征的不同层面的影响,同时,人格特征的内外向可以通过自我监控对学业成绩起到调节作用。     

Approaches to learning,evaluations of teaching,and preferences for contrasting academic environments

Previous research has demonstrated that the academic environments provided by departments in higher education have direct effects on students' approaches to studying. But other studies have indicated that these effects are mediated by the students' own perceptions of those environments. Here two studies are reported which explore the relationships between approaches to learning, or study orientations, and perceptions of the academic environment. Those perceptions are measured in two distinct ways, one which minimises the effects of differential perceptions, and one which highlights them. Factor analyses of the responses of three groups of students taking engineering and psychology are used to clarify the nature of the relationships between study orientations and perceptions of the academic environment. It is found, as in earlier studies, that there are relationships which associate deep approaches with perceptions of relevance, and surface approaches with a heavy workload. But here it is also shown that students with contrasting study orientations are likely to define effective teaching in ways which reflect those orientations. Implications both for the design of feedback questionnaires and for the improvement of teaching and learning in higher education are discussed.     

Redesigning a learning and assessment environment: The influence on students' perceptions of assessment demands and their learning strategies

The study aimed to determine if students in a redesigned course, firstly, hold different perceptions of the assessment demands and, secondly, adjusted their learning strategies towards deeper learning. Contrary to expectations, the students in the original assignment-based (ABL) course (n = 406 students) adopted more deep- learning strategies and less surface-learning strategies than the students in the problem-based (PBL) course (n = 312 students). Although both course format as well as assessment clearly differed in the two conditions, this has not resulted in different perceptions of the assessment demands. Additionally, the results show clearly that the students who express their intentions to employ a certain learning strategy perceive the assessment demands as such and actually employ a related learning strategy.     

Investigating the relationship between transactive memory and performance in collaborative learning

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships between the three dimensions of transactive memory (coordination, credibility, and specialization) and performance of collaborating students. A total of 113 students, distributed into groups of two or three, participated in the study. They were required to complete a series of learning tasks during the semester and to write a joint report for each task to be evaluated by their instructors. Afterwards, they were asked to fill out a questionnaire including self-report measures of transactive memory. The results showed a well-established positive relationship between transactive memory and performance based essentially on coordination; also, performance improved linearly as members developed specializations within groups. Implications for future research in collaborative learning are discussed.     

Diary-based strategy assessment and its relationship to performance in a group of trainee teachers

Our work is based on the study of learning strategies used by a group of trainee teachers in a real learning situation, and how this use of strategies influences the results of the learning process. We use a diary as a tool to assess the learning strategies and compare the results obtained with those using an inventory. Our findings indicate that the deliberate use of strategies (measured by diaries) has a positive effect on knowledge acquisition, with the qualitative analysis method of the verbal protocols noted in the diaries proving more valuable than the use of traditional inventories.     

Approaches to learning and study orchestrations in high school students

In the framework of the SAL (Students’ approaches to learning) poosition, the learning experience (approaches to learning and study orchestrations) of 572 high school students was explored, examining its interrelationships with some personal and familial variables. Three major results emerged. First, links were found between family’s intellectual climate and students’ approaches to learning, in particular with Deep appraoch: The better the family’s intellectual climate the higher student’ scores on Deep approach. Second, along with general intelligence, these approaches predicted students’ academic achievement, higher grades being obtained by these students who scored lower in Surface learning approach and higher in Deep learning approach. Three, students from the four study orchestrations reported in previous research (two displaying conceptual consonance: Deep and Surface approaches, and the other two conceptual dissonance: high-high and low-low, in both Deep and Surface approaches) showed different profiles in some variables (e.g., metacognitive learning strategies, family’s intellectual climate, academic achievement), worse scores being obtained by those who orchestrated their study either in surface or in conceptually dissonant ways. These relationships shed more light on the nature of high school students ‘learning experience, and help to provide an integrated view of students’ webs of experience.     

Examining the relationship between emotion variability,self-regulated learning,and task performance in an intelligent tutoring system

Educational technology research and development - Prior research has focused extensively on how emotion tendencies (e.g., duration, frequency, intensity, and valence) affect students’...     

Approaches to studying and academic performance in short-essay exams

Previous research has generallyfailed to find a relation between the waystudents approach the task of studying andtheir exam grades. The present studyinvestigated why it is that a deep approach tostudying, which has been shown to result in ahigher quality of learning, does notconsistently result in higher exam grades. Theparticipants in the study were 49 third-yearpsychology students. They completedquestionnaires that assessed approaches tostudying, motivation, and intelligence. Theirfinal exam marks, along with indicators of thequality of their final exam responses and thequantity of information reproduced in the finalexam were used as indicators of academicperformance. The results showed that the deepstudy approach was linearly related to thequality of exam responses, but quadraticallyrelated to the quantity of informationreproduced. The use of the deep approach was nomore effective in facilitating high exam marksfor questions that emphasised understanding ofthe study material than for questions thatemphasised reproduction of it. Taken together,these findings suggest that students who usehigh levels of the deep approach fail toconsistently achieve higher exam grades becauseof deficiencies in the quantity of theirresponses, rather than because of theinsensitivity of exams to students'understanding of the study material.