The study examined the effects of a study skills training intervention course on U.S. Air Force Aeromedical Apprentices with five main purposes. The first was to examine the relationship between study skills training and the number of times students required academic interventions outside of normal class time. The second purpose was to examine the relationship between study skills training and end of course averages. The third was to determine the relationship between study skills training and the amount of additional instruction, measured in time, students required. The fourth purpose examined the relationship between study skills training and graduation rates. The final purpose was to recommend areas for further research.

D.Phil. (Education) / The purpose of this study was to apply the "Learning and study strategies Inventory" (LASSI) on first year students in South Africa and Taiwan, Republic of China, in order to identify possible differences in their respective learning strategies. It was attempted to identify effective learning strategies for both groups. The sample consisted of 1489 first year students at the Rand Afrikaans University and 2053 first year students at the chengchi University in Taiwan, the Republic of China. The following statistical package programmes were used in the study: ** The BMDP3D and BMDP4M programmes for factor analysis to determine cross culture comparability. The Kuder-Richardson 20 formula in the NPSO programme for item analysis and the concomitant determination of involvement. T-square and Student's t-tests for independent groups of programmes with the view of identifying possible differences between the two experimental groups. The statistical results showed that: The two experimental culturally; v) groups are comparable cross significant differences exist in respect of the learning strategies of the two student groups. Distinction was made between the merits and problems regarding the learning strategies in the respective countries. The most common problems in the two groups are: 1. The learning content dealt with in class is regarded as worthless. 2. Students spend too much time with friends. 3. Students experience problems with identifying the central idea when reading. 4. When writing a test they often realize that in their studies they have placed the emphasis on the less important study content

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Classroom testing has historically been viewed as a method to evaluate knowledge. However, a growing body of literature underscores the idea that testing can be used for more than just assessing students competencies. In fact, the act of taking a test itself has proven to provide meaningful effects on learning and long-term retention. The idea that repeated testing enhances long-term retention has been dubbed the testing effect. In a variety of settings, research has established that compared to rereading or reviewing, practicing retrieval through repeated testing leads to poorer performance on immediate tests but superior long-term memory on delayed tests. To date, the testing effect has not been examined in conjunction with student-generated materials, such as lecture note taking. Lecture note taking is ubiquitous in postsecondary education, and students view it as an important classroom activity. Note taking, however, is a very complicated and multi-faceted process, which often leads students to take poor or incomplete notes. Professors have recognized this difficulty and begun providing their own, more completed, elaborated, and well organized notes to students in an effort to compensate for their incomplete notes. This dissertation examined whether repeated recall is superior to repeated review for the retention of information when students study their own notes vs. the instructor’s notes. A sample of 117 undergraduate students watched a recorded lecture while half of them took notes, and the other half received the instructor’s notes. Students then studied the notes through repeated review or repeated recall before taking either an immediate or final test on the materials. The independent variables included note-taking (own notes vs. instructor’s notes), review (repeated rereading/reviewing vs. repeated recall/testing), and time of test (immediate vs. delayed). The dependent variables included total test score, performance on memory items, and performance on inference items. Results of this study did not find a testing effect. Rather, the outcome found a significant main effect for time of test across dependent variables (memory items, inference items, total test score), indicating that students performed better on the immediate test than the delayed test. There was a significant study method x time of test interaction, demonstrating that students’ in the review condition performed better on the immediate than the delayed test but only on memory items. No significant interaction was found for the recall condition. There was also a trend for students to perform better on memory items when they repeatedly reviewed rather than recalled the instructor’s provided notes, however the method x notes interaction did not reach conventional levels of significance. Differences between the results of this study and those from other testing effect research are hypothesized to be due to the repetitive and lengthy of nature of this experiment and the lack of student interest and motivation. Future research should continue to explore the testing effect in conjunction with note taking.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Project SCORE: Life Skills for Future Success, is a structured, 20-lesson curriculum, designed to help students develop academic and life skills, as well as self-responsibility, commitment, optimism, respect, and excellence. The curriculum was presented during 36, 90-minute class periods over the fall semester of the students' freshmen year. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Project SCORE at improving grades, learning strategies, self esteem and coping skills with freshmen students at an inner-city high school. In order to evaluate the program, students completed paper-pencil surveys at the beginning and end of the semester in which they were enrolled in the Project SCORE class. In addition, teachers completed evaluations on their perceptions of each student's peer relationships, classroom behavior, mood, and activity level. All teachers and students involved in the course were asked to complete an evaluation to determine their level of satisfaction with the course and areas in need of improvement. Lastly, information pertaining to grades, discipline and standardized test scores were used to determine the impact of SCORE. Participants were 333 9th grade students at a large 4A high school in Texas. Findings suggest that SCORE had a positive effect on coping resources, study skills and grades during the semester students were enrolled in the course. Specifically, students reported significantly higher levels of school self concept and improved coping resources at the end of the semester long course. Lastly, students and teachers believed SCORE to be helpful in easing the transition into high school and at teaching the various life and study skills.

Colleges across the nation are increasingly interested in improving retention of students. Many universities have begun offering workshops and courses targeted at improving study skills in academically underprepared students with the goal of helping students succeed in higher education and continue enrollment. The impact of such courses on study skills themselves has been supported, but prior research has not examined the courses impact on students' beliefs about their ability to succeed in college - that is, their levels of academic self-efficacy. This study examined pre- and post-test levels of academic self-efficacy in college students enrolled in a study skills course in comparison to students not enrolled in such a course. Results indicated that students identified as academically underprepared did indeed have lower levels of skill and academic-self efficacy than students not enrolled in study skills courses, and students enrolled in study skills courses had greater increases in academic self-efficacy than comparison students.

D. Ed. (Didactics)

According to recent statistics, the number of people in Sweden who choose to go into higher education after upper secondary school has grown compared to 25 years ago. Lectures within some university programs are conducted entirely in English, and Swedish students’ abilities to understand, record and recall the information given at lectures are therefore crucial for their academic success. The course English 6 in upper secondary school is supposed to cover different ways of taking notes while listening. Three qualitative interviews were conducted in this study to examine how teachers interpret the course’s note-taking aspects, and how they intend to work with note-taking in the classroom. A quantitative study was carried out with students in upper secondary school to look into their experiences of note-taking in the course English 6. Results show differences in how the teachers approach note-taking and how they choose to work with note-taking in the classroom. A majority of the students participating in the study claimed not to have been introduced to different ways of taking notes in the course English 6. This information calls for teachers to make sure note-taking skills are being taught in an explicit way. More knowledge and communication among teachers also seem necessary in order to help students develop strategies for note-taking in the best way possible.

Those who teach in Higher Education in the UK face with the growing internationalisation and diverse landscape of the sector as well as an obligation to provide students with opportunities for personal, professional and academic development. Whilst a great deal has been written about both internationalisation and Personal Development Planning (PDP), a structured and supported process, which is intended to enable individual students to reflect upon their learning and plan for their future (QM, 2000), relatively little is known about international students' perceptions and experiences of such development and planning. This thesis aims to explore issues that are under-represented in the literature, experiences, perceptions and meanings of personal development and PDP among international students, and cast some light· on the complexities of individuals' development and growth. It employs a broadly phenomenological perspective, attending to individual representations and understandings of a small group of culturally diverse students in one university setting, captured with the use of qualitative research methods (concept maps and interviews). Methodologically, it attends to the researcher's specific insider/outsider positioning and highlights reflexivity as the key feature of the research process. It documents the research journey in a transparent and conscious way, evidencing the methodological experimentation and the development of the researcher. This research raises key questions about uncritical application of concepts such as PDP as well as other pedagogic practices in increasingly diverse classrooms that are underpinned by Western philosophical and scholarly traditions. It challenges a narrow perspective of personal development as centred on agency, individuality, self-promotion, independence and personal achievement and gain by inviting a consideration of personal development and learning as socially constructed processes with a wider range of purposes than traditionally articulated by PDP. It also challenges the perception of international students as 'bearers of problems' and 'empty vessels' and contributes to the shift in the literature from the rhetoric of blame and deficiency to the rhetoric of resource - respectful of students' experiences and knowledge. Whilst not claiming generalisability from a small sample of participants, this project nonetheless has broader implications for researching and teaching across cultures, raising awareness of complexities of multicultural education. In this research I focus on students' ideas of personal development (PD) and personal development planning (PDP). By looking for things that support, not hinder their personal, professional, social and academic development I am able to offer some insights into students' conceptions, beliefs, experiences, hopes and aspirations and suggest ways of improving educational practice (especially in terms of PDP).