by Brenna M. Wernersbach, M.S. and Carol Rosenthal, Academic Resource Center
The drive to retain students has led many colleges and universities to implement study skills courses and workshops designed to help academically underprepared students succeed. The effectiveness of many of these programs in increasing student GPA and retention has been supported in previous research. However, the impact of these programs on academic self-efficacy, another predictor of academic success, has not been investigated.
This thesis study, conducted by Psychology doctoral student, Brenna Wernersbach, M.S., in collaboration with the USU Academic Resource Center, examined pre-post levels of academic self-efficacy in students enrolled in a study skills course (PSY 1730) compared to students enrolled in a general education course. In addition, the predictive power of academic self-efficacy on academic outcome and retention into the following semester was assessed.
Discussion questions:
- What are your reactions to the results of this research?
- How can faculty integrate into their courses “learning how to learn”, through subject-specific, explicit study skills instruction and modeling, to enhance students’ self-efficacy with course material?
- How might study strategies instruction in STEM courses affect under-represented and female students’ success and/or persistence?
- What issues of student self-efficacy do you see in your courses? How would study strategies instruction impact what you see?
- How did you learn to learn as an undergraduate? What learning strategies, study skills, study behaviors did you have to give up, adapt, or gain? Given your experiences, what could you explicitly model for your students?
- What do you see as benefits for explicit study skills instruction imbedded with course instruction? What concerns do you have?
Lianna had a question about the statistics that seemed to show the control group of students (PSY 1010) experienced a loss of control greater than the experimental group of students (PSY 1730).
ReplyDeleteI passed that question on to Brenna, and here is her reply:
"Although it appears that 1010 students lost their sense of control, this was not a statistically significant change. This means that we can't be sure that the difference that we see is not due to chance. The graphs on the poster are somewhat misleading in terms of the size of change, and this has been modified in my final thesis document."