The Student Cognition Toolbox (2018-2022)

The University of New Hampshire’s Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CEITL) proposes to develop, implement, and assess the impact of a Student Cognition Toolbox (SCT) that will be an open educational resource (OER). Many students enter college with limited and ineffective study skills. In this project CEITL will develop a comprehensive set of online instructional materials that will teach students cognitively-supported effective and efficient study strategies. A distinctive feature of our learning modules is that each lesson will include a practice component that will assist students in mastery of that strategy. CEITL will then conduct a number of assessments that examine whether and how students use their newly-acquired skills, as well as the impact of their use on academic performance. The grant will include a strong dissemination component involving colleges and universities throughout the New England states. By the end of the grant, SCT modules will be available to all through the world wide web as an OER.

Proposed Project Description: Our proposed project builds on the work we have done over the past decade and will, we believe, take it to a new level of significance and impact in higher education in New England and beyond.

Students enter college with a variety of past experiences and beliefs about how to prepare for assessments of their academic performance (e.g., exams, problem solving, performance skills). An ongoing study of nearly 6,000 high school seniors’ approaches to study documents that students’ preferred study strategy involves mainly reading and re-reading material (notes, texts, handouts, etc.) (Butler, 2018, Washington University, St. Louis). More striking, a majority of students reported using only one approach to study. Considerable research supports that most students routinely prefer and use study strategies that are ineffective relative to strategies supported by applied research on cognition. In addition, this research shows that different study strategies are needed for different kinds of learning—one size does not fit all. Perhaps most concerning is that less able students are especially prone to using study strategies that are relatively ineffective and inefficient.

In all of our prior initiatives, the focus was on working with course teachers to apply instructional principles designed to improve student learning outcomes. We worked with them to design, implement, and assess the impact of instructional interventions which required students to complete out-of-class and/or in-class activities that incorporated the cognitively-supported principles that we know to positively affect student learning.  This approach was highly successful; we documented consistent and often substantial gains in student learning, retention, and transfer of learning. However, regardless of our dissemination efforts, we cannot reach all teachers to assist them in planning and deploying strong instructional interventions.

With our new initiative, we have shifted our focus directly on students. Our overarching goal is to instruct students on the use of the most effective study techniques. We will develop, implement, and assess the impact of a set of cognitively-based study strategies that will help students to both learn and use in their academic coursework. We propose that students who learn how to use these techniques, and who in fact do use them in their academic courses, will reap substantial academic benefits.  These benefits will include improved performance in their courses, increased levels of academic self-efficacy, and greater persistence in academic programs.  Based on our prior work, we expect that these benefits will be especially impactful among those students who enter the university with relatively less able academic profiles.