Progress review 1 seminar - Jonathan Brazil

Understanding and supporting university students' study strategies

Abstract:

The ability to remember and apply recalled knowledge in familiar and novel contexts is essential in many professions and higher education. To achieve long-term knowledge retention, a plethora of education research reveals two study strategies are potent and generalisable: retrieval practice and spacing (see Carpenter et al., 2022 for review). However, current evidence suggests learners tend to use relatively ineffective strategies such as rereading, rewatching, and cramming when self-regulating their higher education learning. As the empirical picture of study habits develops, the complexity of capturing and supporting students’ study behaviour and decisions comes into focus. To advance theory, educational practice and student outcomes, I will conduct a two-phase investigation aimed at understanding and supporting students’ use of effective study strategies. In phase one, I contribute a high-resolution picture of students’ study strategy use using a longitudinal, mixed-methods study that builds on prior close-ended, one-time surveys that have now reached a saturation point; this will help clarify what study strategies students use and why, when, and how. Armed with this new layer of knowledge, I then validate a targeted educational activity that exposes students to effective study strategies and how to use them. By improving the way we understand and support higher education students’ use of study strategies, this research will help enhance professional and educational outcomes.   

Supervisors: Associate Professor Jason Lodge; Associate Professor Kelly Matthews

Panel: Dr Stephanie MacMahon; Dr Louise Ainscough

Date: Friday 10 February 2023                     

Time: 2pm

Venue: 24-S302

Zoom link: https://uqz.zoom.us/j/84448455723

All HDR candidates and advisors are welcome to attend the presentation.