Promoting the Self-Regulated Use of Effective Learning Strategies in Gateway Undergraduate STEM Courses

在德克萨斯基督教大学的Uma Tauber博士和圣路易斯华盛顿大学的Mark McDaniel博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金奖支持一位早期职业科学家调查多成分策略训练干预对大学生化学和生物课程学习的有效性。通过为学生提供必要的工具，以克服在自主学习时使用有效学习策略和掌握课程概念的障碍，拟议的研究有望对学生的成绩和科学产生深远的影响。由于在女性、少数民族和第一代大学生中，背离科学的比例特别高，因此预计策略培训干预将对代表性不足的群体的学生产生最大的好处。许多学生进入大学后，对有效的学习策略认识不足，难以采用促进长期记忆和理解内容的策略，这导致他们在具有挑战性的科学课程中获得较低或不及格的成绩。尽管大量研究支持检索练习（即从记忆中回忆信息）、自我解释（即解释要学习的信息如何与已知信息相关）和分布式练习（即跨时间传播学习策略）在提高科学学习和成就方面的有效性，但很少有研究关注于促进学生在自主学习时使用这些策略。目前的研究提出了一个多组件策略训练干预，以解决四个阻碍学生在自己的学习中使用这些有效策略的障碍：(1)缺乏对策略的了解以及如何使用这些策略来掌握课程概念，(2)不相信策略对持久学习有效，(3)缺乏发挥这些策略所需努力的动机，(4)学习时间管理不善。具体来说，拟议的研究旨在回答以下问题：与对照组相比，由知识、信念、承诺和计划框架（McDaniel & Einstein, 2020）告知的策略训练干预是否会导致更有效的学习策略的使用？如果是这样，这种有效策略的增加使用是否会导致在入门本科理科课程中课程成绩和持久性的改善？为了回答这些问题，我们将在本科化学和生物学的两个门户课程中进行两个大规模实验，以评估策略训练干预对(a)学生对有效学习策略的知识和信念，(b)学生的自我调节学习行为，(c)考试成绩和(d)对科学的坚持的影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Under the sponsorship of Dr. Uma Tauber at Texas Christian University and Dr. Mark McDaniel at Washington University at St. Louis, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early-career scientist investigating the effectiveness of a multicomponent strategy-training intervention on college student learning in Chemistry and Biology courses. The proposed research promises to have a far-reaching impact on student achievement and science by providing students with the tools necessary to overcome the barriers to using effective learning strategies and mastering course concepts when studying on their own. Because departure from science is particularly high among women, ethnic/racial minorities, and first-generation college students, the strategy-training intervention is expected to have the greatest benefit for students from underrepresented groups.Many students enter college with insufficient awareness of effective learning strategies and struggle to adopt strategies that promote long-term retention and understanding of content, which leads them to earn low or non-passing grades in challenging science courses. Despite a multitude of research supporting the effectiveness of retrieval practice (i.e., recalling information from memory), self-explanation (i.e., explaining how to-be-learned information is related to already known information), and distributed practice (i.e., spreading study strategies out across time) for improving learning and achievement in the sciences, little research has focused on promoting students’ use of these strategies when studying on their own. The current research proposes a multicomponent strategy-training intervention to address four barriers that prevent students from using these effective strategies during their own learning: (1) lack of knowledge about the strategies and how to use them to master course concepts, (2) not believing the strategy is effective for lasting learning, (3) lack of motivation to exert the effort that these strategies require, and (4) poor management of study time. Specifically, the proposed research aims to answer the following questions: Does a strategy-training intervention informed by the Knowledge, Belief, Commitment, and Planning framework (McDaniel & Einstein, 2020) lead to greater use of effective learning strategies compared to a control group? If so, does this increased use of effective strategies lead to improvement on measures of course achievement and persistence in gateway undergraduate science courses? To answer these questions, two large-scale experiments will be conducted in two gateway undergraduate Chemistry and Biology courses to evaluate the effects of the strategy-training intervention on (a) student knowledge and beliefs about effective learning strategies, (b) students’ self-regulated learning behavior, (c) exam performance, and (d) persistence in science.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.