The Learning Scientists Podcast
Education
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Show Notes:In this episode, Megan and Cindy talk about their massive research project at Washburn University investigating the effectiveness of an intervention to teach first-year college students effective study strategies. The Project is huge, but asks an important question: how can we teach students to utilize strategies that we know are effective on their own to improve learning and academic success. We know these strategies work, we just don’t know a whole lot about the best way to help students learn about them and then transfer the use of the strategies to their own studying.
In a huge pseudo-randomized control trial at Washburn University, we taught half of the WU 101 students (a first-year seminar course) about effective learning strategies. In our first wave of data collection during the 2017-2018 school year, we found that first-generation college students actually had a lower GPA in the intervention group compared to the control, while non-first-generation college students had a higher GPA in the intervention group compared to the control.
NOTE: we have to say this with extreme caution! We need to replicate this finding before we decide to run with it. If we do replicate this during the 2018-2019 school year, future research will need to examine why this happened. Note, we’re not saying the strategies don’t improve learning in first-generation students. Instead, it’s possible that this interaction did something that led the students to perform slightly worse in courses! This could be because the intervention didn’t explain the strategies, or that first-generation students were overwhelmed, perhaps they didn’t know how to use the strategies strategically. There are a lot of potential reasons to investigate. Of course, this result could also be a fluke, and we need to replicate. (And honestly, we hope it is a fluke, but the data are the data!)
While this finding is disappointing, and we certainly don’t want to hurt any specific group of students, this highlights the importance of the research and control groups. It is best to test things out before implementing them widely!
Episode 81: STP Talk -- Science Communication about Retrieval Practice
Episode 80: An Interview with Kareem Farah from The Modern Classrooms Project
Episode 79: Toddlers Can Read with Spencer Russell
Episode 78: learningscientists.org Resource Refresher
Episode 77: EF+Math -- Interdisciplinary Teams Co-Creating Evidence-Based Approaches
Episode 76: Meeting at the Intersection of Research and Education
Episode 75: Introducing our New Book Ace That Test!!
Episode 74: Boys Do Cry – An Interview With Matt Pinkett
Episode 73: An Interview with the Director of IES
Episode 72: An Interview with the Authors of Planting an Idea
Episode 71: An Interview with John Hattie, Author of Visible Learning
Episode 70: An Interview with the Authors of Study Like a Champ
Episode 69: An Interview with the Psych Sessions Podcast Hosts
Episode 68: Intersectionality with Zayba Ghazali-Mohammed and Arun Verma
Episode 67: How to Support Students with MTSS with Eva Dundas
Episode 66: Talking about Talking with Children, an Interview with Rebecca Rolland
Episode 65: Teaching about Climate Change with Protect Our Future
Episode 64: Lived Experience of Higher Education Students With the 'Dyslexia Label'
Episode 63: A Chat with the Lab Out Loud Podcast Hosts
Episode 62: Effective Professional Development with Laura Nevins and Frank Patranella
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