Study skills

This study examined the temporal structure of children's study behaviors on a sort/recall task. Forty-two fifth-grade children were given six sort/recall trials, each consisting of a two-minute study period followed by a recall assessment. Three trials used the same word list on each trial, while three trials used different word lists on each trial. Half of the participants received the different word list trials first while the order was reversed for the remaining participants. Results were analyzed for differences between recall groups, type of word list used, and presentation order of the trials. High recallers demonstrated stronger temporal patterns of study behaviors than did low recallers (as measured by Fourier analysis of time series data). High recallers also showed stronger tendencies to use behaviors that facilitated performance in close temporal proximity. Type of word list affected recall and temporal patterns of a portion of the study behaviors analyzed.

This study extends and partially replicates an investigation by David W. Courtney, titled The Self-Examination: A Learning Methodology, conducted in 1974 with two groups of students enrolled in an interdisciplinary art course. The original study was adapted to an art appreciation course. The purpose of this study was to reexamine the efficacy of the self-examination (SE) to promote creative thinking and aesthetic perception as well as a favorable student attitude toward the course. The study was conducted with two groups of students enrolled in an art appreciation course at Palm Beach Community College North in the Fall semester of 1989. The experimental group wrote two SEs and the control group wrote one comparison paper and took a multiple-choice examination. Both groups also took multiple-choice quizzes and final examinations. Pretest-posttest analyses of the test for creativity and aesthetic perception, using t-tests, and of the course evaluation, using multivariate tests of significance, indicated no significant difference between the experimental and control groups.

High school biology classes traditionally follow a lecture format to disseminate content and new terminology. With the inclusive practices of No Child Left Behind, the Common Core State Standards, and end-of-course exam requirement for high school diplomas, classes include a large range of achievement levels and abilities. Teachers assume, often incorrectly, that students come to class prepared to listen and take notes. In a standard diploma, high school biology class in a separate school for students with emotional and behavioral disorders, five students participated in a single-subject, alternating treatment design study that compared the use of regular pens and digital pens to take notes during 21 lecture sessions. Behavior measures were threefold between the two interventions: (a) quantity of notes taken per minute during lectures, (b) quantity of notes or notations taken during review pauses, and (c) percent of correct responses on the daily comprehension quizzes. ... However, the differences were minor, and recommendations are made for specific training in note-taking, the pause strategy, and digital pen fluency which may produce different results for both note-taking and quiz scores.