Abstract:

School achievement plays an essential role in terms of professional and social adaptation. However, all the students do not always perform as the system requires them to. In Belgium, at the end of compulsory education, one student out of two lags behind in their school education (Indicators from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles [Walloon-Brussels Federation], 2012). In this context, we do not consider that there are “bad” learners. Instead, there are those students whose learning profile is more or less in line with the context’s requirements and those whose profile is not.

In many works, the student’s learning profile is operationalised by measures on 3 levels: cognitive, metacognitive and psycho-affective. These psychological variables, which are major components of self-regulated learning, play a central role in the explanation of school performance (for more details, see Frenkel, in press; Frenkel & Deforge, in press). This profile is not fixed once and for all. It evolves over time and it represents the result of the interaction between these three variables with other factors, notably bio-medical, socio-demographical ones, factors related to family environment (Pourtois, Desmet & Lahaye, 2004; Trudel, Puentes-Neuman & Ntebutse, 2002) and the too often forgotten factors linked to class management and social interactions between students and teachers (see Wang, Haertel & Walberg, 1994).

Determining the students’ learning profile enables us to identify their strengths and work on their weaknesses. Therefore, it is essential that psycho-educational teams have validated tools at their disposal in order to carry out this task. Our aim is to propose new tools which will complement the already-existing ones.

In this presentation we propose to introduce and discuss our methodology and the results obtained. The starting target population was made up of 198 primary school students divided equitably into three levels (second year of primary school, fourth year of primary school and sixth year of primary school).

A problem-solving task based on the DELF (Büchel & Büchel, 1995) was created. It was completed by two questionnaires to fill in before and after the task. The learning profile defined on this basis was analysed according to several variables (age, gender, socio-professional category, school results).

Group testing is still in progress. We will also illustrate our presentation with the first results of individual testing which will begin in May 2014.

References:
[1] Büchel, F.P. & Büchel, P. (1995). Découvrez vos capacités, rEalisez vos possibilités, pLanifiez votre démarche, soyez créatiFs. Le programme DELF. Russin, Switzerland: Centre d’éducation cognitive
[2] Frenkel, S. (in press). Metacognitive components in learning to learn approaches. International Journal of Psychology: A Biopsychosocial Approach
[3] Frenkel, S., & Deforge, H. (in press). Métacognition et réussite scolaire: Perspectives théoriques. In C. Giraudeau & G. Chasseigne (Eds.), Psychologie, Education et Vie scolaire. Tours, France: Editions Publibook Université
[4] Pourtois, J.-P., Desmet, H., & Lahaye, W. (2004). Connaissances et pratiques en éducation familiale et parentale. Enfances, Familles, Générations, 1, 22-35
[5] Trudel, M., Puentes-Neuman, G., & Ntebutse J.G. (2002). Les conceptions contemporaines de l’enfant à risque et la valeur heuristique du construit de résilience en éducation. Revue Canadienne de l’Education, 27 (2 & 3), 153-173

Keywords:

Metacognition, learning, assessment, primary school.