College StudyingI. (1)_____of preparation for college studying—College studyin

College Studying
    Good morning. Today’s lecture is about college studying. It is well accepted both in theory and in practice that academically successful college students know how to study. Research suggests,however,that many students enter postsecondary institutions unprepared to meet the studying demands placed on them. This lack of preparation can be traced,in part,to the"hidden curriculum"at the secondary level. That is, study strategies are" hidden" because teachers at all levels assume that their students already have a repertoire of studying behaviors when they enter the classroom. As a result of this lack of preparation, most colleges and universities offer courses or programs that teach students to be efficient and active learners.
    We will mainly talk about the two factors related to effective studying and active learning. They are as follows;
    First, course characteristics. The first factor that influences studying at the college level is a student’s ability to understand the situation or context. (3) Many people describe context as the characteristics of a course, or the external factors that influence reading and studying. These external factors include the texts that are assigned and the academic tasks that are either tacitly or explicitly communicated by the professor. First,we will discuss the role of text. Then,we will describe the role of the academic task, which is beginning to make its way into the literature.
    Early research examining text was mainly concerned with text structure. In the mid- to late 1980s,research on text characteristics,which was primarily quantitative, focused on how text aids and organization influenced text comprehension. This research had a profound influence on publishers of college textbooks, although some research suggested that text aids promoted passive processing. Currently, text research,as it is related to college studying,seems to be heading in two directions.
    First,there has been a recent emphasis on how students approach text in a variety of domains, particularly in history and science, as well as on students’ beliefs about these texts. That is,rather than simply focusing on the differences between narrative and expository texts, researchers are examining differences between expository texts from a variety of disciplines using more qualitative methodology. Such studies represent a step forward and have important implications for college readers because they indicate that text,like strategies,does not operate independently of other factors.
    A second direction that currently is drawing interest examines lecture notes as texts, particularly how students attempt to organize and study these texts as part of test preparation. (5) The results from these studies, which are helping to create a theory of note-taking beyond the encoding-storage perspective, strongly support the notion that college students should use generative strategies to interact with lecture notes.
    The second course-specific characteristic is academic tasks,the products students are asked to formulate and the operations or thinking processes they should use to do so. (6) To be successful in their studying,students must understand the characteristics and nuances of academic tasks and then adjust their strategies accordingly.
    Current research on academic tasks has focused on two areas. Some researchers have investigated how tasks vary across domains In general, the findings from these studies suggest that academic tasks are not only specific to a domain,but also to a professor and a setting. Moreover, the findings indicate that students and professors frequently have different perceptions of what is considered the essential thinking processes in a particular domain. (7) Other studies have investigated academic tasks using case study methodology to describe the patterns of students’ interpretation of academic tasks,their choice of strategies,and their subsequent academic performance.
    The second factor is characteristics of the learner. It’s important to active learning are students’ prior knowledge, metacognitive abilities, motivational levels, and interest in what they are reading or studying.
    Research has examined the role of prior knowledge in comprehension and learning into two periods: first generation of knowledge, which lays the groundwork, and second generation of knowledge,which examines knowledge as it relates to social and cultural contexts. Most closely related to our focus is the role that domain knowledge plays in college students’ ability to understand and learn through text or lecture, as well as the interaction between domain and strategy knowledge. Domain knowledge is defined as the knowledge learners possess about a specific field of study. As such, it involves declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge.
    Even mature readers have limited metacognitive skills and college students often fail to monitor their comprehension. These two conclusions still hold true. College students,who may or may not be mature readers,not only have persistent problems in monitoring text reading,but also when it comes to test preparation and subsequent predictions concerning how well they have performed on tests for which they have studied.
    The role that motivation plays in strategic learning and self-regulation is portrayed well in the reciprocal empowerment model. In this model, skill, will, and social support are deemed essential if maximum motivation is to occur, but the will component is the center if a student is to become truly self-regulated. This model addresses the importance of" hot" cognition, or the blending of motivation with cognition. Moreover, if students believe that strategies are useful in meeting their goals, they will have higher levels of motivation and put forth greater effort.
    Interest is key in determining how students process information, and that interesting information seems to be processed differently from uninteresting information. Other research with college students has found that interest plays a role in how they respond to text, but that domain knowledge and the nature of the text also make a difference.
    To sum up, in the lecture we mainly discussed the research factors related to studying at the college level: course characteristics and learner characteristics. We will discuss the learning strategies later next time. Thanks for your attention.