IMPROVING STUDENTS’ APPROACHES TO LEARNING: MORE EFFICIENT LEARNING BY MEANS OF FEEDBACK

Students’ approaches to learning refer to motives and learning strategies among students in a learning context in terms of deep approaches (interest in the subject and relating of ideas to evidence), surface approaches (fear of failure and rote learning) and strategic approaches (achievement motivation and time management/organized studying). These variables are regarded as useful indicators of students learning and effectiveness. For example, previous research has shown that deep and strategic approaches to learning predict high grades among students, while surface approaches predict poor grades. The main focus of the current presentation is to discuss how the students’ awareness of their own learning approaches may increase their study effectiveness by encouraging interest and achievement motivation and producing better learning strategies, and to present how methods of giving feedback to students on their study behaviour may improve their study effectiveness. This can be done in three steps: 1. Measure the students learning approaches and provide personalized feedback which indicate the students level of the deep, surface and strategic approaches, 2. Apply principles from motivational interviewing by introducing paradoxes (e.g. to point out a discrepancy between the students current level of learning approaches versus a possible, more efficient level of leaning approaches), and 3. A follow up study which may assess and provide feedback about the students changes in learning approaches. These interventions may be administered electronically by means of e.g. an electronic version of a students’ approaches to learning inventory and personalized feedback on their individual scores. This intervention may be efficient by increasing the students’ awareness of their own learning approaches and by giving the students incentives to improve their learning approaches. Development of electronic tools for administration of this project and initial data collection is scheduled to start august 2009 on a sample of undergraduate psychology students at the University of Bergen, Norway.