Background:

Psychology courses provide a good opportunity for instructors to teach students effective learning strategies integrated with content.

Objective:

This replication and extension study explored changes in students’ self-reported use of learning strategies before and after a term paper assignment and examined the relationships between learning strategy use and academic performance.

Method:

Three hundred eighty-five introductory psychology students completed surveys on their use of 11 learning strategies at the beginning and end of the semester, read an empirical article and wrote a term paper about the learning strategy of practice testing, and completed four exams among other assessments.

Results:

Replicating prior work, students generally reported improvements in their use of learning strategies over the course of the semester, though improvements were largely attributable to grade point average (GPA). Two learning strategies—self-explanation and practice testing—were positively correlated with course performance in the second half of the semester, over and above the effects associated with GPA.

Conclusion:

Teaching students about beneficial learning strategies may increase their adoption of those strategies as well as their course performance, replicating prior research.

Teaching Implications:

In order to improve course performance, instructors may consider adapting assignments in ways that increase students’ knowledge and use of effective learning strategies.

中文翻译：

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指导学生更好地学习入门心理学：复制和扩展研究

背景：

心理学课程为讲师提供了一个很好的机会，可以教给学生有效的学习策略以及与内容相结合的方法。

客观的：

这项复制和延伸研究探讨了在学期作业之前和之后学生自我报告的学习策略使用的变化，并研究了学习策略使用与学习成绩之间的关系。

方法：

385名入门心理学学生在学期开始和结束时完成了对他们11种学习策略使用情况的调查，阅读了一篇实证文章，并撰写了关于实践测试学习策略的学期论文，并完成了四门考试以及其他评估。

结果：

复制以前的工作，学生通常报告说在整个学期中他们在学习策略上的使用有所改善，尽管这种改善很大程度上归因于平均学分（GPA）。除了与GPA相关的影响外，两种学习策略（自我解释和练习测试）与本学期下半年的课程表现成正相关。

结论：

向学生讲授有益的学习策略可能会增加他们对这些策略的采用以及他们的课程表现，从而复制以前的研究成果。

教学意义：

为了提高课程表现，教师可以考虑以增加学生知识和使用有效学习策略的方式来适应作业。