Wednesday, June 11
11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Neville Scarfe, Room 278
Note: Light refreshments will be served in this event.
Talk Title
Measuring the Quality of Learning Strategy Use in a Cooperative Learning Environment with English as a Second Language Learners
Abstract
So far the quality of learning strategies of students has been considered primarily as a peripheral theoretical idea or as a topic empirically investigated in terms of correlations between the self-reported frequency of macro-strategies and achievement. This presentation reports on a video-study which tested a new approach for capturing the quality of strategic actions as its key concept in a more finely grained fashion, based on observational data. Specifically, the study scrutinizes the strategies used by 160 9th grade students of English as a second language while reading an English text in a self-regulated, cooperative learning environment. The strategies the students used to overcome comprehension difficulties were identified and coded on the basis of the students’ videotaped conversations, their observed behavior, and stimulated-recall interviews. Regression analyses revealed the adequacy of strategic actions has major predictive power with considerable effect sizes for students’ achievement. Furthermore, characteristics of students who are “good” and “poor” strategy users have been identified and typical deficits in using particular strategy types inadequately. These latter findings can provide teachers with hints about which students need support to engage in specific strategies while engaging in self-regulated learning.
Biography
Dr. Peter Ludwig is Professor of Educational Science at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany. He studied education, psychology, sociology and music and received his Ph.D. His research fields are self-regulated learning, motivational self-regulation, interpersonal and intrapersonal self-fulfilling prophecy in education, evaluation of democratic education concepts and programs of schools, determinants and effects of students’ gender differences, and the placebo effect in education and learning. His major empirical research projects investigated the effects of self-motivational internal strategies on success expectations and achievement and determinants and effects of the adequacy of strategic actions of students and teacher support actions to foster the use of effective learning strategies.