Learning How to Learn: A Model for Teaching Students Learning

Strategies

Shawn E. Nordell
Department of Biology, 3507 Laclede Avenue, Saint Louis University
Saint Louis, MO 63103
Email: [email protected]

Abstract: Incoming freshmen frequently struggle with the transition from high school to collegiate academics. This
appears to be particularly evident in the sciences. Students often lack the self assessment skills and metacognition
skills required to self-identify problems with their academic learning strategy. This does not allow them to diagnose
and modify their learning strategies to allow them to be successful. Instructors often have little experience with such
learning challenges and therefore may not be able to offer students appropriate learning strategy modifications. I
present and assess a model for teaching learning strategies to students in an introductory biology course. This model
presents specific techniques to assist students in accurate self assessment which then leads to recommendations for
modifying their learning strategies. This model was used in an introductory biology course and students who
attended these learning strategy workshops performed significantly better in the subsequent exam than students who
did not attend a workshop. I present an outline of the workshop and learning strategy modifications and discuss the
ramifications of incorporating learning strategy workshops on a broad scale for freshmen.

Keywords: learning strategy, freshman, introductory biology, metacognition, self assessment, study skills

Introduction learning model often requires students to attend class

five days a week for a whole semester or year and
Many colleges have programs designed to students are in class for 30 hours per week. Class time
prepare and guide incoming freshman students as they in this model is not just about presenting material but is
transition from high school to the college experience. also the place where students learn the class material.
Many of these programs (almost 60% according to the Topics may be repeated and discussed with a fairly
National Survey on First Year Seminars small number of students numerous times. In this
(http://www.sc.edu/fye/index.html) focus on the social model, students often spend the majority of their
aspects of this transition (e.g. creating new social learning time in class and there is frequent testing on
networks, adjusting to the new independence of college more focused knowledge than students are presented
living, etc.) which is an important component with in college.
contributing to the successful college transition . The higher education model differs in that
However, the transition from high school to higher material is often presented at a brisk pace once during
education academic expectations is often not addressed lecture and the majority of learning is expected to
at all or, at best, only superficially even though the occur out of class (students are in class only 12-16
successful use of study skills and learning strategies is hours per week). The quantity of knowledge learned,
strongly correlated with academic achievement the pace of academic learning and the ability to
(Zimmerman 1998). Time management skill synthesize and utilize knowledge at the college level is
workshops are often the only academic skill presented usually at a much higher pace or level than students
at these college transition sessions to help students have previously experienced. Therefore, it can be very
prepare for their new academic life and less than a challenging for new college students to understand and
quarter of the First Year Seminar programs offer basic be successful using this different model of higher
study skills seminars education learning.
(http://www.sc.edu/fye/index.html). In college, students are expected to be self-
Incoming students (especially freshmen) often motivated, able to self-assess their learning strategies,
were moderately or even highly successful in high self-diagnose and then modify any learning hindrances.
school and their expectation is that the skills that Metacognition, being able to self assess understanding
produced success in high school will transfer and decide whether or not it is adequate (Bransford et
successfully to college academics. However, the al 2000), is critical for students to accept any
expectations and learning model in high school is often modifications to their learning strategies. However,
very different than they are in college. The high school given their success in the high school learning

Learning How to Learn Bioscene 35

 environment and the many years of ingraining those variances (Sokal and Rohlf 1995). By examining the
high school learning strategies, it is often difficult for difference between the two exams this eliminated the
incoming college students to even self-identify that need for standardizing the scores for each exam. Each
there is a problem with their academic learning strategy exam was made up of three types of multiple choice
much less self-diagnose and modify those ingrained questions, recall, conceptual and application. The
learning strategies. Several studies have found that majority of questions were recall or conceptual based
students often fail to adapt and implement new study questions. Exam 1 had 44 multiple choice questions
strategies when needed (e.g. Broekkamp and Van covering four chapters and Exam 2 had 46 questions
Hout-Wolters 2007). College students often report that covering five chapters. Both exams covered material
―looking over their notes‖ before the exam has served on cell and molecular biology and were held during a
them well in the past (Ruban and Reis 2006). Low 50 minute period.
achieving students, in particular, often report that ―they At the end of the semester students were
felt that they knew the material well going into the assessed on their perceptions of the effectiveness of
exam but then were shocked at their exam grade.‖ each of the study skills strategies.
Compounding the problem is the fact that most higher
education faculty have little or no training in study Workshop Contents
skills or learning strategies. Also, given that many
faculty were exceptional students (hence their 1) Self-Assessment of Learning Techniques
academic success) they may have no experience with The workshop begins with a series of three
such learning challenges. So when a student interactive exercises that allow students to self evaluate
approaches an instructor on ―how to do well in their their current study techniques: 1) assessment of Mona
course‖ many faculty truly have little to offer to the Lisa recall ; 2) multiplication table analogy, 3) current
student other than ―study harder‖. This can be knowledge assessment.
extremely frustrating for both the student and the As discussed previously, most low achieving
faculty member. students are not able to self diagnose problems with
The purpose of this paper is to present and their studying strategies. The most basic issue of self
assess a model for teaching study skills strategies to diagnosis is having students identify when they
help students self assess and diagnose their studying actually ―know‖ something. Memory or knowledge is
strategies and then develop new successful studying the basis for learning and problem solving (Tulving
strategies. This model presents techniques to help 1983). For instructors, it often seems needless even to
students assess and modify their studying strategies for discuss this first step of acquiring a knowledge base
all levels of questions ranging from simple knowledge, with students because our expectation is that students
to conceptual to critical thinking. must know how to learn this information. Many
students report that their study skills often entail
Methods ―looking over‖ their notes numerous times and feeling
confident that they understood the material using this
Students from two lecture sections of a large strategy. However, there is a large chasm between
introductory majors level biology course (n = 348 understanding information and actually knowing
students) were offered a one hour Advanced Study information without the use of any external information
Skills workshop during the Fall 2006 semester shortly (e.g. notes). The three exercises presented here
after the first lecture exam. The term ―advanced‖ was demonstrate this difference for students.
added to indicate that this was not a remedial workshop
and to encourage more students to attend. The Assessment of Recall Knowledge - Mona Lisa
workshop was interactive and developed to present Example - In order to help students self assess their
self assessment tools, study skills strategies and student levels of learning, I have developed an exercise which
learning styles information to students. A PowerPoint allows them to demonstrate their recall knowledge to
presentation accompanied the workshop. Four describe a familiar object. At the beginning of my
identical workshop sessions were offered immediately study skills workshops, students are asked to describe
after the first lecture exam. Almost all of these in detail an object that they could all identify easily, the
students in the course are traditional first year freshmen painting the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Even
students and a majority of them self describe as being though most students have never seen this portrait in
preprofessional health students who aspire to enter person almost all acknowledge prior to the exercise
professional schools such as medicine, dentistry, that they are aware of and can recognize this painting
optometry, podiatry and veterinary sciences. (e.g. it is often considered the most easily identifiable
The difference between the first and second painting in the world) . Numerous other examples that
exam score was examined using a t-test for unequal might be more relevant to students such as describing

36 Volume 35(1) May 2009 Nordell

 the White House or describing an object (such as a their notes. Overwhelmingly they report that they
school mascot) or building on their campus could be could not. I stress that this is again analogous to their
used. The key is that the object must be familiar usual learning procedure where they look over their
enough to students that their prior self assessment is notes rather than actually learn the material.
that they can easily identify this object and feel that
they ―know‖ it. Course Knowledge Recall Example - The next
The students are given a short time limit of 3- technique allows students to self assess their memory
4 minutes to write down every detail they can and their ability to organize and understand the main
remember of the painting (or object) as if they were concepts from a recent course lecture. I select a
describing it in detail to someone who had never seen chapter or topic that has been discussed in lecture
the painting. Giving students a well defined and short recently that students have read and/or studied.
time limit impels them to focus on the task. Students are asked to write down the two or three most
After the assigned time, students are asked to important main concepts on that recent chapter/ topic.
share the details that they remembered of the object. Again, the students are given a short, limited amount of
For the Mona Lisa, students can almost always identify time (2-3 minutes) to complete this task. Students are
that it is a woman, the painting is overall dark in color, then asked to share their understanding of the main
she has an odd smile/ smirk on her face and that her concepts. Overwhelmingly, the students cannot
hands are showing but they are not sure how they are remember or report the main concepts of a chapter that
shown. Students responses on hair length, its nature they heard for an hour in lecture and then may have
(curly or straight), her clothing, and the background, spent several hours reading the textbook or going over
etc. vary widely. In other words, students remember their notes. Most students have no responses at all or
the very superficial or most rudimentary aspects of the at best may remember a key word or phrase. I
painting but little of the details or nuances. This is emphasize that they reported spending considerable
analogous to many students studying/ learning time and effort studying this material but do not appear
strategies. Students overwhelmingly report that they to have learned that material. I stress that this indicates
look at the information in their notes or in their that their current studying strategies do not appear to be
textbook and understand the basic information but have effective or this would be a fairly simple recall task.
not learned the more specific aspects of the knowledge 2) Study Skills Strategies
or how to analyze this knowledge. They might be able Next, a series of study skills strategies are
to identify a concept when it is presented to them as presented to help students prepare for class, take
they saw it in the textbook or notes but they have not effective class notes, actively read their textbook, and
absorbed and synthesized this information in order to prepare for exams. These strategies prepare students
be able to use this knowledge in other contexts. for learning in and out of the classroom.
After the students share their responses of Preparing for Lecture - Keywords or Terms
their recollection of the Mona Lisa, a slide is shown of Biology is a discipline that is full of
the painting and I discuss the contradictory aspects discipline-specific terms. In lecture, students may not
they reported. The analogy to their learning of their have time to fully recognize and learn these new terms
notes is then discussed with the students. The students and as such, their ability to follow and comprehend the
are asked to compare how this experience relates to lecture topic is hindered. In courses such as
their current learning experience. The students introductory biology, each chapter is often a self
overwhelmingly report that they can identify ―where‖ a contained mini-course in a new sub-discipline each
concept is located in their notes but they can not replete with its own set of terms and keywords. For the
remember the details. This is analogous to being able student who is not familiar with these, listening to the
to identify the Mona Lisa but not being able to lecture can sometime be analogous to listening to a
carefully describe her appearance. foreign language. It does not allow for adequate
Recall Learning Example - Multiplication Tables - In retention and comprehension of lecture material. To
order to emphasize this point, students are next asked remedy this, I recommend that students go through
to recall how they learned their multiplication tables each chapter prior to lecture and make a list of new
while in elementary school. Most students report that keywords and their definitions. By doing this the
they spent a great deal of time repeatedly going student is already engaged in the material and will have
through each multiplication example where they would a better opportunity to follow the lecture topic. During
recite the example without looking at their notes or the the study skills workshop, students are asked to go
multiplication table. Students are asked if they felt that through the textbook reading for the next chapter and
they could have learned how to multiply numbers if look for words in bold font and section headings.
they had only ―looked at‖ their multiplication table and Many textbooks use a different font to identify these
did not repeatedly go through each example without key terms and definitions or use these as headers for

Learning How to Learn Bioscene 37

 each section. Students are encouraged to create a list During Lecture - Taking Thorough Notes
of key terms and definitions for each chapter that they It may seem abundantly clear to instructors
can refer to during the class time if needed to remind that all (or most) of the material discussed in lecture is
them of the meaning of the terms being discussed. important and relevant to the topic and as such students
Preparing for Lecture - Passive vs Active Reading should be taking notes on this topic. However,
Students reading each and every sentence of a students often are not effective at determining which
new chapter prior to class may find the information to information is important and many only take notes on
be a bewildering array of facts and terms. It is often what is on a PowerPoint slide, the chalk board or what
useful for instructors to give students specific pages or the instructor writes down during class. In order to
figures for them to preview prior to class in order to retain information it is important for students‘ to
focus their pre-class learning to a manageable amount review these notes shortly after lecture. For some
and to emphasize the most important concepts on that students learning styles recopying their notes can
topic. Students are asked to preview the text headings reinforce material. Students are also encouraged to
to use as a road map for the chapter. By asking what is create their own quiz questions of each day‘s lecture
the major concept illustrated in a figure they can begin material. They can then share these with other students
to examine the conceptual underpinnings of the in the class or some students may form study groups to
chapter. By having these concepts be familiar but not share their questions. Students are encouraged to
yet fully understood creates a greater learning potential create quiz questions that are in a format similar to the
during class. In addition, as students do not fully exam format (e.g. short answer, multiple choice, etc.)
comprehend all concepts in this section they create in order to best simulate this experience.
internal questions (Walter et al. 2002) about the Actively Reading the Textbook After Class
concepts that can drive their interest in the concept and Another strategy for reinforcing knowledge is
this can lead to higher rates of retention of material. to review the textbook on the pertinent course material.
Many students report that they spent This can be used to fill in knowledge gaps and again
numerous hours reading their textbook either before create more quiz questions in the appropriate testing
and/or after class and yet when quizzed on this format. Almost all biology textbooks (as well as other
knowledge have very little recall of this material. disciplines) outline the main concepts of each chapter
During the study skills workshop, I ask students to at the beginning of the chapter. Many often do this as a
provide details of their most recent non-academic short bullet list of concepts. Students do not usually
reading. In contrast to their academic reading, many read these or find them relevant but I show students
students can provide elaborate plot and character that these can be used as study tools to develop the
details of this reading demonstrating that reading connections between topics. In addition, asking
material once can allow for a large amount of student to use their notes to determine the two or three
comprehension and recall. This shows students that main concepts after a specific lecture allows the
their ability to recall and retain knowledge is possible students to review their notes and identify the
from their initial reading. However, in their non- underlying themes or concepts for this topic.
academic reading they are usually actively making Studying Lecture Material and Self Assessment of
connections between characters and plotlines. Their Knowledge
inability to recall basic information from their textbook Students often report that they read through
likely occurs because of the passive state of activity their notes and understood them fully but yet their test
during their reading - they are reading the words but scores indicate that they had not mastered the
are retaining almost no information. Students were knowledge. They do not seem to make the connection
actively engaged in their non-academic reading which between reading and understanding their notes and
resulted in higher retention rates of information. knowing the material. One strategy that students can
Another technique that students can use to be use to self identify their knowledge is to ask them to
more actively involved during reading is to set up the explain the terms and/or concepts of the material to a
relevance of the topic. If students ask themselves ―why friend, dog, plant, etc. without using their lecture notes
is this topic important‖ or ―how might this topic relate or textbook. Students may need to practice doing this
to me‖ it creates relevance in their lives and this can first with their lecture notes but eventually must be able
increase student engagement and information retention. to do this without the aid of any lecture notes or
Another technique is for students to ask themselves textbook.
―what do I already know about this topic‖ as this Flash cards can be useful for students to
allows them to create connections with the topic and utilize during short study sessions throughout the day
their previous learning. This creates an internal to learn specific terms. This allows students to quickly
learning map to guide their learning for this topic. ascertain their level of knowledge. It is also important
to stress that this may take many repetitions until they

38 Volume 35(1) May 2009 Nordell

 know all terms and can explain a complex concept T-cells, B-cells, etc. However, for the past three years
without using any notes or course material at all. I have assigned a required concept map assignment of
Another useful technique for learning concepts is to the immune system for all of my introductory biology
have students draw a complete figure of a concept from students. The students have overwhelmingly approved
memory without using any course materials. This of this assignment and the number of student questions
again allows students to self assess their level of involving this chapter has decreased.
knowledge. Preparing for the Exam
Even in classes that involve problem sets, Time management is a critical component for
students often do not realize the difference between success in exams. In high school, many students only
―going over‖ the problems numerous times while studied the evening before an exam and still were
looking at their notes versus being able to explain a successful on these exams. However, given that the
problem to someone else without looking at their notes. quantity, depth of knowledge and pace is often much
Students are advised to be able to ―teach‖ a problem or higher in college than in high school, this technique
concept to another student without using their notes at does not usually work for most college students.
all. This very simple solution is usually not utilized by Students need to be able to identify which topics will
students prior to these study skills workshops. require more studying time than others and make a
realistic plan for studying at least one week before the
Using Concept Maps to Create a Hierarchical exam. To help students with time management I
Construction of Knowledge present them with a week long hourly time chart that is
Even if students have learned all the terms and posted on their course website that allows students to
can fully explain each concept they may not yet clearly identify actual times available for studying for
understand the connections between concepts. Often this exam.
the organization of their knowledge is in a linear The week prior to each exam students are first
fashion of facts and terms and concepts. This linear asked to post in the time chart all of their other course
organization does not enhance the development of activities as well as work responsibilities, clubs, sports,
critical thinking nor their understanding of the critical committees, etc. They are also asked to post all social
relationships between concepts. obligations (e.g. dinner with friends or family, etc). In
Concept maps are an excellent way to have addition, they are asked to post in any other school
students create a hierarchical construction of work time commitments (e.g. writing papers,
knowledge that reinforces their understandings and homework or assignments, etc.). Then, they are asked
allows them to see connections between concepts. This to rank the topics that will be covered on the exam
allows them to practice their critical thinking skills. A from more challenging to less challenging. Students
concept map is a flow diagram that links important are asked to put each topic into an available study time
concepts with the key terms that explain the during that week and to chart more time for more
relationship between these concepts or terms (Allen challenging topics than less challenging topics. This
and Tanner 2003). also allows students to break up the studying into
The steps to creating a concept map are: management chunks of time and having a concrete
1) List all the key words/ terms, concepts or phrases schedule allows them to understand how much time it
from that topic. Rank these from the most broad and will take to study each topic for the next exam.
inclusive to the most specific and least inclusive;
2) Cluster the key words/ concepts that interrelate Results
closely;
3) Arrange the keywords/ concepts in a diagrammatic In the Fall 2006 I presented this study skills
representation from the most specific key words to the model in four identical workshops shortly after the first
broadest concepts; exam. The workshops were held in the late afternoon
4) Link each key word with a preposition or verb to or early evening for students in a majors level
indicate their relationship. introductory biology course shortly after their first
The concept map technique can be time lecture exam and lasted approximately one hour. Out
consuming and may not appeal to students with aural of a total lecture enrollment of 343 students, 68 (almost
learning strategies. So it may be best used as an 20% of the class) students attended the workshops.
assignment for students to use for particularly The students in the workshops represented 10 different
challenging chapters or topics. For example, the majors with Biology, Biochemistry, and Exercise
immunology chapter in most introductory biology is Science Physical Therapy compromising the majority
often perceived by students as a bewildering array of of these majors (n= 42) (Table 1).

Learning How to Learn Bioscene 39

Table 1. The majors of the students attending the study skills workshop (n = 68 students)

Major Number of
Students
Attending
Workshop
Biochemistry 6

Biology 21

Biomedical Engineering 2

Business Administration 1

Chemistry 4

Deciding 9

Exercise Science Physical Therapy 15

Nutrition and Dietetics 3

Nuclear Medicine Technology 1

Occupational Sciences 2

Psychology 4

The majority of the students who attended a between these two groups, equal to half of a letter
workshop received a B or better on their first exam (46 grade.
of 68). Students who scored a B or higher on Exam 1
had the highest participation rates while students who Discussion
scored a C+ or lower had the very lowest participation
rates (22 of 68). To examine the Students attending a study skills workshop
effectiveness of attending a study skills workshop I performed significantly better on the second lecture
evaluated the performance of students on the second exam than students who did not attend a study skills
lecture exam for two groups of students: those that did workshop indicating that these workshops can enhance
attend a study skills workshop and those that did not student academic performance. Most of the students
attend a study skills workshop. who attended the workshops were already high
The mean of Exam 1 was higher than the achieving students and yet their performance increased
mean of Exam 2, (mean exam 1= 83.3% +/- S.E. .61; after attending a study skills workshop. Study skills
mean exam 2 = 68.7% +/- S.E. = .008) therefore the strategies, such as the ones described here, are rarely
difference between the two exams was examined (e.g. taught within a course setting and are also even rarely
Exam 1% - 2%). Students who did not attend a study taught in freshman seminar classes. These results
skills workshop had a larger decrease (mean decrease indicate that the addition of study skills strategies may
= 15.5% +/- S.E. .7) than students who did attend a be an important component to student achievement.
study skills workshop (mean decrease = 10.6% +/- S.E. There are numerous papers (e.g. Chaplin
1.2) from Exam 1 to Exam 2 (t-test, p<.0008). This 2007; Solon 2007, Miri et al. 2007) presenting
represents a five percent difference in the performance strategies for helping students develop critical thinking

40 Volume 35(1) May 2009 Nordell

 skills but few that present strategies to help students they had ―done well‖ on an exam only to be startled by
self identify and self diagnose problems with their their actual exam score. They also report that they
basic learning strategy. These papers often emphasize ―felt well prepared‖ for an exam based on their
the importance of critical thinking skills. However, in studying. These students may well have spent
order for a student to utilize critical thinking skills they considerable time studying but may have been using
have to have knowledge of the facts, terms and ineffective studying strategies. Nonis and Hudson
processes involved with that concept (e.g. successful (2006) found that there was no correlation between
studying strategies). Students who are performing amount of time business students spent studying and
poorly in science courses almost always do not have academic performance which again may indicate the
the basic knowledge of a concept although they will importance of using appropriate studying strategies for
repeatedly report that they felt that they did ―know‖ the effective studying.
material. At the end of the semester student assessment
Metacognition (Bransford et al 2000) is the surveys examined students perceptions of the study
ability to self-monitor your current level of knowledge skill strategies. Students were asked what aspects of
and understanding and diagnose when it is or is not their studying they modified after attending a study
adequate. There are several studies that indicate that skills workshop (Table 2). Students could choose more
students are often poor gauges of their level of skill than one answer. Overwhelmingly students responded
development (e.g. metacognition). Studies examining that they changed their lecture preparation and note
the relationship between self assessment and assessor taking in lecture the most (56.2%). The next highest
assessment (graduate students or faculty) of students response was changes in making and using flash cards
skills found that students self assessment ratings were as a study aid and using an exam studying schedule
much higher than that of the assessors ratings (Kirby (32.5%). However, few students reported using
and Downs 2007; McEnery and Blanchard 1999). concept maps or creating their own quizzes (11.2%).
Chaplin (2007) found that students with actual test Both of the later exercises are the most time demanding
scores of 60% or less in an introductory biology class and skill demanding and students lack of utilizing these
tended to overestimate their exam performance by an may be due to constraints on either of these (e.g. time
average of 22%. This demonstrates that low achievers or skill). Given the importance of these strategies for
in particular are truly poor at self-identifying any developing critical thinking skills future research
studying problems. Students who come to me for class should examine this result.
performance advice often self report that they felt like

Table 2. Results of assessment survey regarding utilization of the strategies presented in the study skills workshop.
Students were asked to reply to the following question: After attending an Advanced Study Techniques Workshop
what specific aspect(s) of your studying did you modify or add to your studying. You can choose more than one
answer.
31.9%
Preparing for lecture (e.g. looking for key words or concepts in the
textbook or in PowerPoint)
24.3%
Taking more detailed notes during lecture
13.9%
Making and using flash cards
18.6%
Making and using an exam studying schedule
6.6%
Making and using concept maps
4.6%
Creating Quizzes

achieving students were more likely to attend a

An important finding of this study indicates workshop this may indicate that these low achieving
that the students who need the help the most are the students do not perceive a need for this assistance.
least likely to seek it out. Low achieving students were Weinert and Luew (1987) found that skilled learners
the least likely to attend a study skills workshop. It is appear to adapt more easily to new learning situations
unclear whether this is due to their inability to self than unskilled learners which further indicates the
assess their need for assistance or their reluctance to necessity of providing study skills workshops for
seek assistance as they may consider this a remedial or incoming students to help them develop these
punitive experience. However, given that the higher important academic skills.

Learning How to Learn Bioscene 41

 There are numerous possibilities to explain MEYER, H.H.1980. Self appraisal of job performance.
why students have poor metacognition abilities Personnel Psychology 33:291-295.
(Somers and Burnbaum 1991; Meyer 1980).
However, Rohwer (1984) acknowledged that academic 2006 National Survey of First-Year Seminar
studying research was one of the most neglected topics. Programming. National Resource Center for The First
Clearly, poor self assessment is a widespread Year Experience and Students in Transition .
phenomenon in students and future research on <http://www.sc.edu/fye/index.html> accessed
strategies for helping students increase their December 23, 2007
metacognition skills is greatly needed.
MIRI, B., DAVID, B.C., AND ZOLLER, U.. 2007.
Acknowledgements Purposely teaching for the promotion of higher order
thinking skills: A case of critical thinking. Research in
I would like to thank the University of Arizona where I Science Education 37(4):353-369.
first learned the value of good study skills through their
study skills workshops and the Reinert Center for NONIS, S.A. AND G.I. HUDSON. 2006. Academic
Teaching Excellence at Saint Louis University which performance of college students: influence of time
has provided further resources and motivation for this spent studying and working. Journal of Education for
study. I thank Mary Stephen, Tom Valone and two Business January/ February 151-159.
anonymous reviewers for their comments. I would like
to thank the students in my Principles of Biology ROHWER JR, W.D. 1984. An invitation to an
courses who have provided their important educational psychology of studying. Educational
perspectives on study skills. Psychologist 19(1):1-14.

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42 Volume 35(1) May 2009 Nordell