The Western Conference on Science Education

Reshaping learners through modelling best practices in undergraduate physiology

FNB 2220

Although research demonstrates that there are more effective methods to approach learning, students rarely adopt these learning strategies, opting for what they are comfortable with or what has worked in the past (Hartwig and Dunlosky, 2012). In part, students often don’t know what methods to employ as the majority of university students have reported that they have not been taught how to study (Kornell and Bjork, 2007). Studies show they often adopt more ineffective methods that may provide short-term benefit but not learning strategies that achieve long-term retention (Miyatsu et al., 2018). We routinely communicate with students about effective study strategies in our office hours and during how to study sessions. However, few students report adopting these suggestions, which led to the design of this study. The purpose of this study was to assess if we could modify student study behaviours. Active learning interventions were implemented in tutorials of our large 1^stand 2^ndyear introductory physiology course. We modelled active learning techniques shown be to be effective in the literature. Some of these techniques included peer instruction, card sorting, problem sets, among others. Students worked in small groups of 4-5 on these weekly activities and we assessed if modelling effective study strategies altered self-reported study behaviours. Using the validated motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (MSLQ), students reported their study behaviours at the onset of the course and upon course completion. Students indicated a decrease in repeated note transcribing between the pre-course and post-course questionnaire. They also reported less cue card memorization at the end of the course. Therefore, we saw a reduction in behaviours that are known to lead to superficial learning. Conversely, there was an increase in the self-reported adoption of peer teaching over the course. Students also engaged in practicing problem sets more often than required. Both of these behaviours were modelled on multiple occasions suggesting that demonstrating active learning strategies reshaped student study behaviours.