Approaches to studying and academic performance in short-essay exams     

Amirali Minbashian  Gail F. Huon  Kevin D. Bird 《Higher Education》2004,47(2):161-176

Previous research has generallyfailed to find a relation between the waystudents approach the task of studying andtheir exam grades. The present studyinvestigated why it is that a deep approach tostudying, which has been shown to result in ahigher quality of learning, does notconsistently result in higher exam grades. Theparticipants in the study were 49 third-yearpsychology students. They completedquestionnaires that assessed approaches tostudying, motivation, and intelligence. Theirfinal exam marks, along with indicators of thequality of their final exam responses and thequantity of information reproduced in the finalexam were used as indicators of academicperformance. The results showed that the deepstudy approach was linearly related to thequality of exam responses, but quadraticallyrelated to the quantity of informationreproduced. The use of the deep approach was nomore effective in facilitating high exam marksfor questions that emphasised understanding ofthe study material than for questions thatemphasised reproduction of it. Taken together,these findings suggest that students who usehigh levels of the deep approach fail toconsistently achieve higher exam grades becauseof deficiencies in the quantity of theirresponses, rather than because of theinsensitivity of exams to students'understanding of the study material.  相似文献   

Small group learning: Do group members' implicit theories of ability make a difference?     

Nadin Beckmann  Robert E. Wood  Amirali Minbashian  Carmen Tabernero 《Learning and individual differences》2012,22(5):624-631

We examined the impact of members' implicit theories of ability on group learning and the mediating role of several group process variables, such as goal-setting, effort attributions, and efficacy beliefs. Comparisons were between 15 groups with a strong incremental view on ability (high incremental theory groups), and 15 groups with a weak incremental view on ability (low incremental theory groups). Groups worked on a computer-based management simulation. The task required the groups to learn the underlying structure of the simulation to be able to control the system effectively. High incremental theory groups set more challenging group goals, attributed their performance more to effort, developed stronger group efficacy, and displayed steeper learning trajectories than low incremental theory groups. Group goals mediated the impact of group members' implicit theories on group learning. Exploratory analyses of the group communication process revealed that members of the high incremental theory groups communicated more openly about the task and maintained a stronger task focus compared with members of the low incremental theory groups. Research on group learning benefits from a stronger individual differences perspective that incooperates variables such as implicit theories of ability as determinants of emerging group processes and outcomes.  相似文献   

Accuracy in judgments of study time predicts academic success in an engineering course     

Gyllen  Justin G.  Stahovich  Thomas F.  Mayer  Richard E.  Darvishzadeh  Amirali  Entezari  Negin 《Metacognition and Learning》2019,14(2):215-228

Metacognition and Learning - The present work examines the accuracy of self-reports of study time for college students. In a 10-week Mechanical Engineering course, 99 college students accessed...  相似文献