Abstract
When I visited them a few months later, my friend’s wife whispered something to her daughter, and the girl ran over to me and handed her report card. The lowest grade was 91 percent—and it was for physical education! Her academic improvement showed that the girl needed only monitoring of her learning process that summarization provides and that her parents are able to offer her just the right degree and type of support that she needs for successful outcome in her schoolwork, but the same techniques may not work as well with students.
Her academic improvement showed that the girl needed only monitoring of her learning process that summarization provides and that her parents are able to offer her just the right degree and type of support that she needs for successful outcome in her schoolwork…
Studies have shown that parental involvement plays an important role in their children’s academic success (Castro et al., 2015), but the problem is that many parents do not know how to help their children and often end up creating additional and unnecessary stress for their children as well as having their children develop negative attitudes toward learning (Deci & Ryan, 2002). If the children decide—or their parents strongly encourage them—to go to college, then the same problem will repeat itself: The students were never taught how to study effectively (Gettinger & Seibert, 2002). On one hand, it would be very useful to teach students effective study habits while they are in high school or even middle school, but on the other hand, because of the significant and multifaceted differences in the environments, students will have different challenges when they begin studying in college or trade school (Bottia et al., 2015; Duckworth et al., 2016), which means that students will need a somewhat different set of skills for studying effectively in college or trade school.
If the children decide—or their parents strongly encourage them—to go to college, then the same problem will repeat itself: The students were never taught how to study effectively.
One important aspect of studying is communication between students and their instructors, lecturers, or professors. While it is expected of instructors to know how to teach, all people have unique combinations of learning styles and prior experiences, which means that some students would understand the material well, while others would not. This problem can be reduced if the students would ask relevant to the lesson questions (Duran & Dökme, 2016; Santoso et al., 2018). Considering large class sizes in many colleges, professors cannot address individual issues that their students may have, not just because of the lack of time but also because the students often do not yet know what parts of information included in each lesson they understand and what parts they do not. At the same time, note-taking skills can be equally useful in high school and college or technical schools, not just because the notes will be useful to students later on but also because, as a beneficial side effect, they train students’ active listening skills (Al-Musalli, 2015).
…note-taking skills can be equally useful in high school and college or technical schools, not just because the notes will be useful to students later on but also because, as a beneficial side effect, they train students’ active listening skills.
Researchers argue about the degree of significance that memorization and understanding have in learning. One study, for example, concludes that the high failure rate among students who take Calculus courses are caused by their attempts to memorize, rather than understand, the concepts taught in the courses (Nasir et al., 2017). At the same time, learning medicine may require more memorization than understanding (Weurlander et al., 2016). There is also an interesting argument that memorization plays an important role in understanding (Nasrollahi-Mouziraji & Nasrollahi-Mouziraji, 2015). The exact ratio of memorization and understanding, however, depends not only on the subject but also on an individual student’s prior knowledge, learning style, attention span, motivation, environment, and even personality traits, among other possible contributing factors. The best way of incorporating all these elements into study habits is to have students select and custom-tailor techniques and strategies that work best for each of them, individually (Mintzes et al., 2005). This is where self-regulated learning comes in.
The best way of incorporating all these elements into study habits is to have students select and custom-tailor techniques and strategies that work best for each of them, individually.
While regulation of one’s own learning is not really new—for example, some 300 years ago, Benjamin Franklin described methods that he used to improve his memory and “arrange thoughts”—but only for the last couple of decades, researchers have been examining various learning strategies trying to identify most effective ones (Zimmerman, 1990). They include goal-setting, task analysis, motivation, self-monitoring, and self-reflection, and each of them, to a greater or lesser degree, needs to be custom-tailored to each individual student. The reason for such individualized approach to knowledge acquisition has to do with the way this process occurs in real life. According to the works of Jean Piaget, we do not simply absorb new information; we assimilate it within our prior knowledge and experiences into one whole, understandable to each person individually, informational system (Bodner, 1986). In other words, it is more beneficial to teach students to adjust learning strategies according to their individual circumstances, then to teach them universal strategies.
…we do not simply absorb new information; we assimilate it within our prior knowledge and experiences into one whole, understandable to each person individually, informational system.
At the same time, when I was gathering information about effective study habits, my main focus was on experts in the field. But before I approached the experts, for the purpose of establishing which problems with learning occur most often, I had interviewed several dozen of students—from high school students to doctoral candidates—and discovered that not all students have problems. On and off, I would talk to an “A” student. What was interesting was that several psychologists told me that some people are naturally better at exact sciences while others are better at humanities. This premise may make perfect sense in theory, until you talk to “A” students, who probably like some courses more than others, but they can learn any material excellently, no matter whether or not they have a natural inclination toward the subject. To be honest, when I met “A” students, my interviews with some of them became by far more extensive than with the experts, who told me the information that appears in most textbooks, much of which is too abstract to be practical. On the other hand, many “A” students told me that they have “photographic memory” and that it is the secret to their success. While I have no reason to doubt the effectiveness of their memory, rarely professors would ask their students to reproduce the content of, say, page 134 from their memory; typically, to do well in a class, students need to process the information provided in the textbooks and lectures, rather than memorize it. Given a chance, I would turn to such students to try to find out more about the ways their minds work, but at the time of those interviews, I was more curious about those “A” students who had to put some effort into their excellent grades. And interestingly enough, their methods had many similarities. The approach that the “A” students described again and again was summarization: The students would read texts that contain new information and then retell that information using their own words, bit by bit to themselves, either orally or by taking notes.
The approach that the “A” students described again and again was summarization: The students would read texts that contain new information and then retell that information using their own words, bit by bit to themselves, either orally or by taking notes.
Some research studies show that the causes of dropping out of high school have to do with parental involvement in students’ lives and even “reciprocal friendships contributed to the prediction of dropping out of high school” (Ricard & Pelletier, 2016, p. 32), but other studies conclude that subjective health complaints are the causes for school absenteeism and so is truancy. A deeper look at the college dropout causes reveals multifaceted contributing factors that influence the students’ decision making (Pervin et al., 2015). When students dropout from universities, however, research shows that the main reason for their dropping out often is the students’ underdeveloped study skills, and researchers consider teaching students effective study skills in high school to diminish university dropout rates (Bas et al., 2017).
When students dropout from universities, however, research shows that the main reason for their dropping out often is the students’ underdeveloped study skills, and researchers consider teaching students effective study skills in high school to diminish university dropout rates.
While more research in effective study habits would be helpful, researchers have discovered a lot about techniques used by high-achieving, average, and low-achieving students. There are many differences in learning styles, prior knowledge, environments, personality traits, and other contributing to learning factors, being aware of how these factors can affect one’s learning ability needs to be taught at schools. Despite their variations, if students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses, they can adjust or even develop learning strategies that will turn them into high-achieving students. But more important, they will become able to absorb and use knowledge to their advantage in their lives, instead of being annoyed by the necessity to learn something new, particularly something that they do not find interesting at first sight. In one study, for example, researchers added a course on study skills development to a first-year pharmacy students’ curriculum, and as a result, “Average percentile scores increased significantly from the beginning to the end of the course” (Sera & McPherson, 2019, p. 664).
By teaching students self-regulated learning strategies, teachers and school administrators can make students aware that study strategies can be acquired and that they can look up certain specific information about new findings in the field of self-regulated learning, if they need it in the future. Most important, training students to process new information and to acquire new skills efficiently can improve their self-confidence, free up their attention to apply their knowledge, and possibly improve their lives and lives of those around them.
…training students to process new information and to acquire new skills efficiently can improve their self-confidence, free up their attention to apply their knowledge, and possibly improve their lives and lives of those around them.
