21 Feb 2022
Effective and confident learners
The Churchie Research Centre has created A Learner’s Toolkit to teach students effective study strategies. After four years, the programme has successfully produced impactful results for Churchie students.
Students in Year 7 through to Year 10 complete a journey through the Academic Skills and Mentoring (ASM) curriculum, where they learn a variety of study skills from A Learner’s Toolkit and develop themselves as independent and resilient learners. The Churchie Research Centre is also beginning to share key research outcomes and resources for all educators and parents.
These initial findings are the result of a longitudinal project following the progress of students who entered the Senior School in 2018, the first cohort to benefit from study skills training and intervention programmes. At key points, students were measured on their belief about study and preferred study methods. The results show that students successfully adapted to secondary schooling, completing the middle years with accurate understandings of their study skills and equipped with more effective strategies.
The transition into secondary school is a challenging time become more self-aware of their academic abilities and their progress as students. It is common to see students struggle with negative experiences and feelings associated with achievement, which reduces their belief in their ability to study. This is evident in Phase B, see diagram bottom right, showing student confidence moving closer to ‘unsure’ and is a recognised phenomenon known as the ‘middle-years dip’. However, as the cohort undertook explicit training in A Learner’s Toolkit strategies, their confidence increased and remained constant through Phase D. Furthermore, this sample assessed their ability to study more effectively and consistently than previous cohorts at Churchie.
Impact on study preferences and use
Making the most of your study effort and time is a critically important priority for busy students. We know that, as informed by cognitive science, not all study strategies are equally effective, with many of the more common strategies yielding the lowest benefit per time spent.
Students commence secondary school favouring low-impact strategies such as re‑reading notes and memorising formulas, facts and definitions. Student study patterns are also mostly driven by looming assessment (e.g. cramming for an exam).
Through their Academic Skills and Mentoring timetabled classes, reinforced by their subject class teachers, students successfully adopted more effective strategies, such as practice tests, quick reviews, brain dumps and flashcards. By Year 10, the cohort demonstrated a higher prevalence to choose more effective study strategies.
Thank you to the Churchie Research Centre team of Dr Terry Byers and Dr Vicky Leighton. We look forward to you continuing to empower students in their learning, both at Churchie and elsewhere.
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