Assessment and Training of Student Learning Strategies
 By Claire E. Weinstein

Contents

 

 

 

Abstract

Learning-to-learn phenomena have been examined from a wide variety of perspectives (Anderson, 1985; Brown, Bransford, Ferrara & Campione, 1983; Dillon & Schmeck, 1983; Kirby, 1984; Pressley & Levin, 1983a, 1983b; Weinstein & Mayer, 1985). While, in general, this development has served to enrich the field of study, it has also created enormous definitional problems. For the purposes of this chapter, attention is focused on a subarea called learning strategies. Learning strategies are considered to be any behaviors or thoughts that facilitate encoding in such a way that knowledge integration and retrieval are enhanced. More specifically, these thoughts and behaviors constitute organized plans of action designed to achieve a goal (Anderson, 1985; Paris, in press; Weinstein & Mayer, 1985). Examples of learning strategies include actively rehearsing, summarizing, paraphrasing, imagine, elaborating, and outlining.

This chapter is organized around several themes. First, a categorical scheme for conceptualizing learning strategies is presented. Next, some issues related to assessment and research methodologies are presented. Finally, approaches to teaching learning strategies are discussed.

Introduction

For many years studies of human learning were dominated by the behaviorist school of thought in psychology. This resulted in a total dependence of the effects of external events as determinants of what was acquired. With the rise in interest in the role of organizational processes and information transformations that take place within the learner, the interest of many researchers was refocused on what had come to be regarded as the black box of the human mind (Melton & Martin, 1972). Many of these earlier studies represented attempts to demonstrate the roles that learners could or did play in facilitating their own learning and recall. Much of the emphasis in these studies was on the extent to which the use of mnemonic devices could enhance recognition or recall memory. Based on the success of these early studies, some researchers went on to examine the processes that underlie the use of mnemonic strategies (e.g.. Bower, 1970; Paivio, 1971). This work contributed to an evolving interest in the remediation of learning deficits in academically disadvantaged and academically under prepared students. If the processes and procedures that underlie effective learning could be taught, or enhanced, then an additional and possibly very potent form of remediation could be developed. It was this idea that underlies the motivation for much of the work that has been done in the area of learning strategies, particularly when the focus is on the adult learner.

In the late 1960s and into the middle of the next decade, the majority of investigators in this area concentrated on demonstrating the effectiveness of training designed to teach the use of one or more mnemonic strategies or techniques (e.g., Borkowski & Kamfonik, 1972; Rohwer, 1966, 1970; Wood, 1967; Yuille & Catchpole, 1973). The tasks used most frequently in this work included paired-associate learning, serial list learning, and free recall learning. Notice that these tasks tend to be associated more with laboratory research tasks than with the real-world natural language processing activities. A major change in the more current literature is to focus attention on ecologically valid tasks, particularly those needed to succeed in a post-secondary educational setting (e.g., Dansereau, in press; McCombs, in press; Nickerson, Salter, Shepard, & Herrnstein, 1984; Wittrock, 1985). This change in focus to more applied aspects of cognition has affected the ways learning strategies are now conceptualized, the methods used to measure their acquisition and use, and the procedures and materials used to teach them.

Types of Learning Strategies

Given the relatively young and somewhat disorganized nature of the field, there is not yet one organizational scheme that is generally accepted as a way of classifying learning strategies. However, Weinstein and Mayer (1985) attempted to create a set of categories that reflected both the current state of research and practice. Each separate category is composed of methods that can be used by learners to influence one or more aspects of the encoding process. The ultimate goal for any of these activities is to enhance learning outcomes and performance.


Rehearsal Strategies for Basic Learning Tasks.
An example of a strategies in this category would be repeating, in correct serial order, the names of the colors in the spectrum. There are a number of different educational tasks that require simple recall. This is particularly true at the lower educational levels and in introductory courses at the post-secondary level. A major difference between experts and novices in many content areas appears to be related to the knowledge base that they possess (Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981; Gagne, 1985; Larkin, 1981). While the structure, organization, and integration of this knowledge base is most important for expert decision making and problem solving, the acquisition of the basic knowledge needed to create a more unified data base is often the first step. As Schmeck (1983) notes, it may not be possible for even the highly intelligent students to engage in deeper forms of information processing until they acquire this knowledge base.

Rehearsal Strategies for Complex Learning Tasks.
The learning tasks in this category are more complex and tend to involve knowledge that extends beyond the superficial learning of lists or unrelated bits of information. Strategies in this category would include copying and underlining material presented in a lecture. Generally, they involve repetition aimed at literal reproduction. Like the methods discussed above, these activities seem particularly effective when they provide further opportunities for more meaningful processing to take place, such as the use of elaboration, organization, or comprehension monitoring.

Elaboration Strategies for Basic Learning Tasks.
Elaboration involves adding some sort of symbolic construction to what one is trying to learn as a way to make it more meaningful. This can be accomplished using imagery to help remember the action sequence described in a play and the use of a sentence to relate a country and its major industrial product are both elaboration's. The creation of effective elaboration's. requires that the learner be actively involved in processing the to-be-learned information. Numerous studies have shown this to be an important prerequisite for meaningful learning, versus superficial encoding for recall (Cermak & Craik, 1979; Rigney, 1976; Weinstein, 1982; see also chapters by Entwistle, Marton, and Schmeck, this volume).

Elaboration Strategies for Complex Learning Tasks.
Activities in this category include creating analogies, paraphrasing, and using prior knowledge, experiences, attitudes, and beliefs to help make the new information more meaningful. Again, the major goal of each of these activities is to get the learner actively involved in building bridges between what the learner already knows (in the broadest sense of this term) and what he or she is trying to understand. Trying to apply a principle to everyday experience, relating the content of one course to the content of another, relating what was presented earlier in a lecture to the current discussion, trying to use a problem-solving strategy in a new situation, summarizing an argument, all of these are different ways to elaborate.

Organizational Strategies for Basic Learning Tasks.
The strategy in this category focus on methods used to translate information into another category focus on methods used to translate information into another form that will make it easier to understand. The facilitating effect is usually attributed to the processing involved in accomplishing the transformation as well as the structure imposed. Examples of methods in this category include grouping the battles of World War II by geographic location, organizing animals by their taxonomic category, and listing foreign vocabulary words by their parts of speech. In each of these examples an existing or created scheme is used to impose organization on an otherwise unordered set of items. Notice that organizational strategies, like elaboration strategies, require a more active role on the part of the learner than simple rote or rehearsal strategies.

Comprehension Monitoring Strategies.
Metacognition is used to refer to individuals’ knowledge about their own cognitive processes as well as their abilities to control these processes by organizing, monitoring, and modifying them as a function of learning outcomes and feedback (Brown, 1975, 1978; Brown et al., 1983; Cavanaugh & Perlmutter, 1982; Flavell, 1970, 1981). A sub-area within metacognition that is particularly relevant to the present discussion is called comprehension monitoring. Operationally, comprehension monitoring involves establishing learning goals, assessing the degree to which these goals are being met, and, if necessary, modifying the strategies being used to facilitate goal attainment. Comprehension monitoring requires several types of knowledge on the part of learners. First, they need to know something about themselves as learners. For example, what are their preferred learning styles? What subjects are easier or harder for them to understand? What are their best and worst times of day? This type of knowledge helps individuals to know how to schedule their study activities and the kinds of resources or assistance they will need to perform efficiently and effectively.

Learners also need to have some knowledge about the nature of the task or tasks they are about to perform as well as the anticipated or desired outcomes. It is difficult to reach a goal if you do not know what the goal is (see Entwistle, Chapter 2, Marton, Chapter 3). For example many students experience great difficulty reading a textbook in spite of the large amount of time and effort they devote to the task. In our own research with a learning-to-learn course we have developed at the University of Texas, the problem often turns out to be that that the student does not know how to read a textbook. Many of these individuals do not know how to select main ideas and important details for further study. They treat every sentence as if it were just as important as every other sentence. Not knowing about different text structures or how to identify important information can make reading a textbook an almost impossible task. Thus, it is important that students have an understanding of what is required by different school tasks.

It is also important to access relevant prior knowledge. This can serve two functions. First, it helps with understanding the new material. However, it also helps with preparing for the new learning by initiating relevant schemata and providing some guidelines for checking the accuracy of new knowledge.

Finally, it is necessary to have some knowledge of strategies that can be used to guide learning or that can be called upon to help when a comprehension problem is encountered. This type of knowledge includes knowing about methods in each of the categories already described. It also includes being able to actually use these methods and knowing when they are appropriate to use. Thus, comprehension monitoring is very intimately related to the selection and use of other strategies in any given learning activity.

Assessing the degree to which goals are met is one to the central tasks in comprehension monitoring. This task is usually accomplished through some form of self-questioning, broadly defined. There are a wide variety of specific methods that could be used to assess one’s level of understanding. For instance, attempting to apply a new principle, using a chapter summary to create questions to answer while reading, self-testing while reviewing lecture notes, or attempting to teach the information to someone else (or even pretending that you are teaching it to someone else) are all examples of ways in which we could assess our level of understanding. It is important to note that many of these activities overlap with strategies presented in earlier categories. This categorical scheme is not meant to imply orthogonality among the classes of methods. In fact, there is a great deal of overlap between categories. For example, trying to apply a principle to a new situation can be a form of elaboration, thereby enhancing encoding, but it can also be a way to help monitor one’s understanding of the principle to see if further study is needed. This interdependence among strategies makes them very difficult to study, particularly when the researcher attempts to isolate the effects of just on e type of strategy. The problem is similar to teaching students about a car. Although we discuss separately the ignition system, the barking system, the steering system, and so forth, we know that driving a car is an integrated activity composed of many sub-skills and requiring varied knowledge. The emergent properties of the integrated system that represents driving a car, however, are too complex to present. It is the same with the strategies that underlie a systematic approach to studying and learning. The whole is too complex to teach or use for conceptual guidance in research, so we reduce it for utility and lose several degrees of precision.

Affective Strategies.
Affective strategies help to create and maintain suitable internal and external climates for learning (Dansereau et al., 1979; McCombs, in press; Palmer & Goetz, in press; Weinstein & Underwood, 1985). Although these strategies may not be directly responsible for knowledge or skill aquisition, they help to create a context in which effective learning can take place. Examples of affective strategies include using relation and positive self-talk to reduce performance anxiety, finding a quiet place to study to reduce external distractions, and establishing priorities and setting a time schedule as a way to reduce procrastination. Each of these methods is designed to help focus the limited processing capacity of the human information processing system on the learning goal. Eliminating both external and internal distractions contributes to enhanced attention and concentration.