This edition of the R3 Substack continues with the question of how to help students enhance their own study practices, this time in a community college STEM context. Then, we look at the connections between autonomy, choice, and curiosity.
Citation:
Vemu, S., Denaro, K., Sato, B. K., & Williams, A. E. (2022). Moving the needle: Evidence of an effective study strategy intervention in a community college biology course. CBE Life Sciences Education, 21(2), 1–10.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1187/CBE.21-08-0216
Paywall or Open:
Open
Summary:
Promoting high-impact, evidence-based study strategies among community college students in STEM courses addresses a pressing need in higher education, with the potential to open up new opportunities for career and academic progression. Techniques for doing this include direct instruction in applying strategy as well as assigning “exam wrappers,” a method for eliciting reflection from students on how they studied and performed on a test. These types of interventions haven’t been studied as extensively in community college populations, a gap which the present study seeks to address. The study also examined differences among demographic groups, including minoritized students, and the connection between the use of evidence-based study practices and grades in the course. High-impact/evidence based practices in this study included self-testing (i.e., retrieval practice) and notably, making diagrams, a practice that may be particularly relevant for STEM learning.
Research Question(s): (Excerpted from the article)
“1. What study skills do community college students use, and do they differ based on gender, race, or age?
2. What study skills are correlated with academic achievement in two community college courses?
3. Can an intervention consisting of exam wrappers and an instructor-led discussion of study skills increase in the use of high-impact study skills among community college students?”
Sample: 99 students at a Hispanic-serving community college in the Midwestern United States
Method/Design: Students in introductory anatomy & physiology and microbiology courses were surveyed at the beginning and end of the semester on timing and spacing of their study, and typical study practices. The instructor included an intervention in which the instructor presented and led discussion about evidence-based study practices, including drawing/creating diagrams, self-testing, and spacing.
Key Findings: Similar to other studies focusing on university populations, students reported frequently using lower-impact practices such as rereading, highlighting, and recopying notes word for word. At the end of the course, students were more likely to use drawing as a strategy; overall, there were trends toward more spacing and self-testing and less rereading, highlighting, and recopying of notes at the end of the semester, compared to the beginning. Spacing and drawing, but not self-testing, predicted higher course grades. At the beginning of the semester, but not at the end, minoritized students were more likely to report using highlighting. No other demographic differences were significant.
Choice Quote from the Article:
“Students regularly choose to use some study strategies that have little evidence of effectiveness in college classrooms. Our own survey showed the questionable strategies of rereading, flash cards, and underlining and highlighting were the most common ones used by students at the beginning of term.”
Why it Matters:
I agree with the authors that community college students are an important, and relatively under-studied, population in the field of academic success, persistence, and STEM education. The intervention they used – direct instruction and discussion of high-impact strategies, coupled with exam wrappers – is accessible and reasonably easy to put into place, even in low-resource settings. I appreciate that the authors looked not only at increases in higher-impact strategies, but also decreases in lower-impact practices such as recopying notes, highlighting, and rereading. These low-impact, default practices compete for students’ study time and may be more prevalent among less-privileged and minoritized students when they enter college. The findings add to a growing body of evidence showing that in the absence of active intervention and guidance from instructors, students are likely to adopt strategies that deliver less impact for time invested, most notably, rereading.
Most Relevant For:
STEM programs; biology and health sciences programs; community colleges; first-year and student success programs; bridge programs; DEI initiatives and units
Limitations, Caveats, and Nagging Questions:
Statistical power was likely an issue in this article; as the authors acknowledge, some of the interesting trends (such as changes across the semester) might have been statistically significant if the sample had been larger. Because exam wrappers and the presentation/discussion of strategies were both a part of the intervention, it’s not possible to know if one or both of these was responsible for any resulting improvement in study practices. Self-reporting of study practices is a reasonable way of assessing impacts, but does introduce the possibility that students exaggerated actual changes, either as a way of meeting the perceived expectations of the instructors, or other biases.
If you liked this like this article, you might also appreciate:
Karpicke, J. D., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2009). Metacognitive strategies in student learning: Do students practise retrieval when they study on their own? Memory, 17(4), 471–479. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210802647009
McDaniel, M. A., & Einstein, G. O. (2020). Training learning strategies to promote self- regulation and transfer: The knowledge, belief, commitment, and planning framework. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(16), 1363–1381.
Morehead, K., Rhodes, M. G., & DeLozier, S. (2016). Instructor and student knowledge of study strategies. Memory, 24(2), 257–271. doi: 10.1080/ 09658211.2014.1001992
Pennebaker, J. W., Gosling, S. D., Ferrell, J. D., Apfel, N., & Brzustiski, P. (2013). Daily online testing in large classes: Boosting college performance while reducing achievement gaps. PLoS ONE, 8(11), e79774. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079774
File under: DEI; Hispanic-serving institutions; STEM; community college students; retrieval practice; spaced practice; metacognition; self-regulated learning; high-impact study strategies; diagrams; drawing to learn
Citation:
Romero Verdugo, P., van Lieshout, L. L. F., de Lange, F. P., & Cools, R. (2022). Choice boosts curiosity. Psychological Science, 34(1), 99-110.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221082637
Paywall or Open:
Open
Summary:
Researchers used a simulated lottery game to find out whether making a choice about an activity increases curiosity, independent of other factors. They also looked at whether choice interacts with other aspects of the information people might be curious about, such as how valuable they perceive that information to be or how much uncertainty there is. Choice did increase curiosity even when controlling for other factors.
Research Question(s):
How does having a choice at the outset of a task involving uncertainty affect curiosity about the outcome? Does choice interact with other factors like the stakes involved and the level of uncertainty?
Sample: 77 adults
Method/Design: Participants watched a simulation of a lottery with illustrated vases containing different-colored marbles, worth different point values in the game. Each round of the game started with two vases being shown. In the “choice” conditions, participants chose which vase to draw the marble from; in the “no-choice” condition, the computer made the selection of which to draw from. Participants then indicated their level of curiosity and whether they wanted to see the outcome of that draw (i.e., what color marble came out of the vase). Points were awarded regardless of whether the participant said they wanted to see the outcome of that round of the game. There was a delay for seeing the outcome, so that participants had to be willing to wait in order to satisfy curiosity. Some rounds of the game were worth more points than others, and the probability of a winning draw changed as well, which allowed the researchers to manipulate the value of an outcome and the level of uncertainty, independent from the choice variable.
Key Findings: Curiosity went up as a function of choice, independently of other variables. Participants were more curious and more willing to wait to see an outcome when they made a choice at the outset of a round, and also, when the stakes were higher and outcomes less certain.
Choice Quote from the Article:
“Free choice and autonomy, as tools to enhance curiosity and boost learning and memory, open up promising avenues for future research and applications. One clear domain of application is education, where the benefits of autonomy and curiosity for learning have been long recognized but remain to be exploited.”
Why it Matters:
Stoking curiosity has been a favorite piece of advice from teaching experts. For example, Eric Mazur’s techniques for peer instruction draw students in through setting up curiosity-provoking problems; if you’ve never seen this type of class in action, it’s worth checking out an example (such as this one). You can sense the excitement in the room when students become really curious about a problem they’re working on. And as the article mentions, curiosity also enhances memory.
Because curiosity is so powerful, and frequently so elusive to create, it makes sense to look at the finer points of how works. This article’s curiosity procedure isn’t carried out directly in a learning context, but it does focus on factors that teachers have some control over, unlike, for example, students’ pre-existing interest in a subject. The results further suggest that emphasizing the importance of a problem, and also offering problems that are not cut-and-dried as far as the answer, could also boost curiosity independent of other factors. Lastly, toward the end, the article includes an interesting discussion of the possible neural mechanisms by which choice stimulates information seeking.
Most Relevant For:
Instructional designers; instructors interested in developing peer instruction activities or who are overhauling courses; pedagogy and course design initiatives
Limitations, Caveats, and Nagging Questions:
The article provided surprisingly little information about the demographics and background of the sample – I assume they are community-dwelling adults recruited to participate through a research center mentioned in the article, but I’m not positive. I think it’s reasonable to assume the results would generalize to a typical group of college students, but it’s worth noting all the same. The lottery procedure they used was an ingenious way to isolate and manipulate the variables in the study, but it is at least superficially quite different than the kinds of problems you’d normally see in a class setting. The authors make a good case for the applicability of the work to real-world learning situations, but that’s not a part of what they did in this article.
If you liked this like this article, you might also appreciate:
Abel, M., & Bäuml, K. H. T. (2020). Would you like to learn more? Retrieval practice plus feedback can increase motivation to keep on studying. Cognition, 201(March), 104316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104316
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68
Schell, J.A., & Butler, A.C. (2018) Insights from the science of learning can inform evidence-based implementation of peer instruction. Frontiers in Education, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2018.00033
File under:
Curiosity; motivation; intrinsic motivation; autonomy; choice; self determination theory