Effective study strategies for students in the ATAR system

Caitlin McCluskey

Dean of Studies

Effective study strategies

for students in the ATAR system

2020 was a landmark year for secondary schooling in Queensland as it was the first year the new Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) and Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE) system were implemented. For the first time in over 50 years, the QCE system now comprises external assessment pieces. Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) states that: 'The new QCE system combines the flexibility and authenticity of school-based assessment, developed and marked by classroom teachers, with the depth and consistency of external assessment set and marked by QCAA-trained assessment writers and markers' (QCAA 2019, p.1) . These external examinations account for 50 per cent of a student’s overall outcome in each subject within the Mathematics and Science faculties and 25 per cent for all other subjects. In addition, the external examination for Mathematics and Science subjects will cover two units (or 110 hours) of content that has been covered over the previous twelve months. In contrast, the now phased out Overall Position (OP) system had a significantly different assessment structure. The OP system operated under the principle of 'continuous assessment' with assessment being completed at regular intervals throughout the year (Queensland Studies Authority [QSA] 2014). All assessment was developed internally, and in Mathematics subjects, there was more opportunity for students to demonstrate knowledge with a minimum of four and maximum of ten assessment pieces that were used to determine an exit level of achievement at the end of Year 12 (QSA 2014). This meant that with regular testing students were not required to maintain knowledge of the unit content for long periods of time – most commonly, assessment would cover eight weeks of content. In addition, as the assessment was written by classroom teachers, it could be tailored to student knowledge strengths and depth of coverage. It is evident that the assessment styles differ greatly between the two systems – both in terms of the amount of content assessed in each piece of assessment and the additional pressures of an externally written and marked examination. Therefore, it follows that it would be beneficial for student outcomes to develop more effective approaches to teaching and learning for teachers and students alike.

While teachers can control the environment in the classroom and implement effective learning strategies in their own lessons, what students do outside of the classroom is largely outside of their control. Hattie (2003) asserts that students account for 50 per cent in variability in outcomes, meaning that assisting students to work effectively outside of the classroom could have high gains, a stance Pashler et al. (2007) support. Pashler et al. also note that the development of these metacognitive skills requires explicit intervention: 'Accurately assessing one’s own degree of learning is not something that comes naturally to our species and fostering this ability is a useful, albeit neglected, component of education' (Pashler et al. 2007, p. 1). McGuire (2015) surmises that focusing on teacher delivery only and not including the work of students as learners is leaving out half of the equation and will never result in long-term learning. In fact, she argues that if students are taught the skills of how to learn effectively, they will become productive learners regardless of their learning ability and the teacher quality in the classroom. Francis and Nagel (2020) further infer that teaching students to learn and study means being efficient and effective in these pursuits, rather than a perhaps more traditional view of hard work requiring hours and hours of study. Tullis et al. (2013) found that even when students implement retrieval in their study, they do not recognise the direct benefits of the strategy, only the indirect. Therefore, there appear to be two approaches to overcoming barriers to student implementation: firstly, ensuring students know what the effective strategies are and, secondly, ensuring that students attribute success (or failure) to the appropriate cause (Francis & Nagel 2020). Therefore, developing student meta-cognition is integral to countering the Dunning-Kruger effect both with respect to what they know and how they study (Dunning 2011; Kennon 2010; Krajc 2008; McGuire 2015). In addition, Hattie (2020) implores the lack of ‘teaching of thinking’ that occurs in the classroom as, despite reviewing 5,000 hours transcripts of lessons, he was unable to find a single example of teachers teaching 'how they thought, how they’re thinking, how to get better at thinking' (p. 117). It therefore stands to reason that the lack of education around how to think and study is impacting students’ ability to implement effective strategies. Roediger and Karpicke (2006) found that students prefer repeated studying as it provides increased short-term benefits. This approach would have been a successful study strategy for the previous OP system in Queensland, where examinations were administered once a term. Given the longer duration of retention required in this new system, the evidence implies that this is no longer an effective strategy. Yan et al. (2016) conducted a series of experiments to investigate the most effective way to dispel incorrect notions about effective study techniques. It was hypothesised that participants were often exposed to blocking rather than interleaving in their schooling and had experienced short-term success with blocking, and therefore would feel strongly that blocking would be a more effective strategy than interleaving. The study found that, of the participants who were not exposed to the theory behind interleaving versus blocking, 46 per cent SUNATA 43

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reported finding interleaving to be the most effective strategy in comparison to the 37 per cent who supported blocking. The participants who were exposed to the theory had vastly different results, with 75 per cent supporting interleaving as the most effective strategy compared to the 16 per cent who favoured blocking (Yan et al. 2016), providing compelling evidence that education in the theory is paramount to reversing metacognitive illusions. Bjork (1999) asserts that the effects of unconscious techniques and influences are often not attributed to those techniques, which leads to ongoing application of conscious techniques which may not be as effective. For optimum learning gain, it is therefore necessary to explicitly teach students which techniques support long-term retention and transfer (Bjork, Dunlosky & Kornell 2013). McGuire (2015) recommends explicitly teaching the neuroscience behind cognition, ensuring that instead of phrasing this in terms of 'study skills', 'metacognitive learning strategies' is introduced instead. Research indicates that intentional, explicit introduction to study and learning strategies and the science behind them is the most effective way to encourage students to implement effective strategies in their own work. Ultimately, only a certain amount of learning occurs in the classroom and the remainder is student directed. It is important that students take responsibility for their learning outside of the classroom and receive the support to implement the strategies that will produce the greatest gain in their learning outcomes. Key among student actions is growth mindset combined with reflection on practices and attributing success (and failure) to the processes and actions that have occurred (McGuire 2015). Instead of seeing disappointing results as a reflection of ability, it is important to attribute these results to the methods and strategies used in the leadup to assessment and reflect on what can be improved. Beyond mindset, McDonald and Boud (2010) contend that teacher feedback is insufficient for optimum student development and that, in fact, students should be using self-assessment to regulate their own learning. Students should therefore be taking responsibility for creating their own opportunities for retrieval and reflecting on the process and feedback. To promote self-regulated learning, students should be directed to textbook resources to find these opportunities (Testing as a tool for learning: ideas for classroom application 2015). In addition, teachers could be modelling self-testing strategies in the classroom and helping students to identify how to create appropriate quizzes and low-stakes testing opportunities from the resources on hand (Zabrucky & Bays 2015). While these strategies are student based, in order for them to be successful, they require teacher commitment to teaching students not only course content, but how to think and how to learn.

References

Bjork, RA 1999, ‘Assessing our own competence: Heuristics and illusions’, in D. Gopher & A. Koriat (eds), Attention and performance. Attention and performance XVII: Cognitive regulation of performance: Interaction of theory and application, The MIT Press, pp. 435–459. Bjork RA, Dunlosky J & Kornell N 2013, ‘Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions’, Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 64, no. 1, pp. 417-444. Dunning, D 2011, ‘The Dunning-Kruger Effect: On Being Ignorant of One’s Own Ignorance’, in JM Olson & MP Zanna (eds), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 44, pp. 247-296. Francis, S & Nagel, M 2020, Your high-performance guide to study and learning, Hawker Brownlow Education, Cheltenham, Victoria. Hattie, J 2003, Teachers make a difference: What is the research evidence?, viewed online 4 April 2021, http://research.acer.edu.au/research_ conference_2003/4/ Hattie, J & Larsen, S 2020, The Purpose of Education: A conversation between John Hattie and Steen Nepper Larsen, Routledge, London. Kennon, J 2010, Mental Model: The Dunning–Kruger Effect, viewed online 4 April 2021, http://www.joshuakennon.com/mental-model-thedunning%E2%80%93kruger-effect/ Krajc, M 2008, ‘Are the Unskilled Really that Unaware? Understanding Seemingly Biased Self-Assessments’, CERGE-EI Working Papers, viewed online 6 April 2021, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_ id=1483793 McDonald, B & Boud, D 2003, ‘The Impact of Self-assessment on Achievement: The effects of self-assessment training on performance in external examinations’, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 209-220. McGuire, SY 2015, Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation, Stylus Publishing, USA. Pashler H, Bain, P, Bottge, B, Graesser, A, Koedinger, K, McDaniel, M & Metcalfe, J 2007, Organizing instruction and study to improve student learning, National Centre for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, Washington, DC. QCAA 2019, Strategies for retaining and recalling information for assessment, viewed online 6 April 2021, https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/ portal/resource/organisation/67c34573-caef-4436-872a-a3dd5fcd0c8c/ app/resource/52/long-description. Queensland Studies Authority 2014, Mathematics B Senior Syllabus, viewed online 6 April 2021, https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au Roediger, H & Karpicke, J 2006, ‘Test-Enhanced Learning’, Psychological Science, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 249-255. Clegg, P 2015, ‘Testing as a Tool for Learning: Ideas for Classroom Application’, Teaching Business & Economics vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 14-16. Tullis, JG, Finley, JR & Benjamin, AS 2013, ‘Metacognition of the testing effect: Guiding learners to predict the benefits of retrieval’, Memory & Cognition, vol. 41, pp. 429-442. Yan, V, Bjork, E & Bjork, R 2016, ‘On the difficulty of mending metacognitive illusions: A priori theories, fluency effects, and misattributions of the interleaving benefit’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, vol. 145, no. 7, pp. 918-933. Zabrucky, K & Bays, R 2015, ‘Improving Students' Retention of Classroom Material Through the Testing Effect’, College Teaching, vol. 63, no. 2, pp. 91-91. SUNATA 45