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Student study as a research topic I have my own definition of studying that I created mostly for research purposes. I define studying as "voluntary cognitive activities following the initial experience with information intended to improve understanding or retention." It might be argued that in advanced study behavior:
In my opinion and in contrast to other topics/issues, studying receives much less attention than it deserves. It would seem the perfect topic for researchers interested in metacognition or motivation. What better topic for those advocating student-centered learning or constructivist? Why the lack of attention? Who knows, but to me it seems reasonable that the topic frustrates researchers. 1) Suggestions for how to study, carefully validated in laboratory studies, are notoriously ignored by students. A good example of this would be SQ3R (a technique for studying textbooks such as might be used in psychology, history, biology) -- students hear about it middle school or high school, learn it if they go to college study skill courses, but don't use it. 2) Carefully controlled research and "voluntary" behavior may be mutually exclusive. How do you gather data when each individual functions somewhat differently? If you have data, how do you "analyze" this information to reach conclusions - multivariate statistics, qualitative methods, etc.? 3) What do we have to understand about study behavior to offer suggestions to help students improve their own performance? The ideas we seem to have are largely ignored (see #1). So -- if you are looking for an area that offers great potential for truly significant advances, the topic of study behavior would be my suggestion. |