Proposal Title
Impacts of pre/post examination metacognition prompts on study strategies and predicting grades
Session Type
Poster
Room
Thames Hall Atrium
Start Date
13-7-2023 4:30 PM
End Date
13-7-2023 6:00 PM
Keywords
Metacognition, Learning, Assessment for learning, Student reflections' Metacognitive development
Primary Threads
Teaching and Learning Science
Abstract
Defined broadly as thinking about our thinking, metacognition refers to our awareness of the cognitive processes used when engaged in a learning activity. Most researchers agree that metacognition is a skill that can both be taught and learned and is particularly useful in helping learners keep track of their understanding of an issue, organize and prioritize their attention and learning resources, and review their own progress. The current project seeks to utilize data from existing course assessments in an undergraduate large enrolment course, collected over the Winter 2019 and 2020 terms. To better understand how student learning and studying evolve when being prompted to reflect on these strategies in consequence to learning successes and/or challenges over a semester of study. Overall, students became better predictors of their actual grades with each successive assessment. Students scoring in the top 66% of the class became better predictors than students scoring in the bottom 33% during the progression of the term. Qualitative analysis of the extent to which inclusion of pre/post exam prompting and reflections on study habits influence predicted and actual achievement identified 3 themes in changes to study approaches that appear to influence grade predictions. First, students who appear to have refined the number of study techniques used became better predictors of their grades. Second, students who remained consistent with the number of study techniques used also became better predictors of their grades throughout the semester. Third, students who consistently experienced large gaps between their predicted and actual grades indicated using higher numbers of study techniques compared to the students with lower gaps. This study was conducted using an ethics protocol for human subjects approved by the University of Ottawa Research Ethics Board (H-08-19-4834).
Elements of Engagement
Poster visitors will be prompted to reflect on how they incorporate reflection tasks in their classroom and how they engage their students to assess their study habits before and after assessments and assignments. Feedback will also be sought on the data analysis, in hopes of discovering new ideas and research questions that could be answered with the data set at hand.
Impacts of pre/post examination metacognition prompts on study strategies and predicting grades
Thames Hall Atrium
Defined broadly as thinking about our thinking, metacognition refers to our awareness of the cognitive processes used when engaged in a learning activity. Most researchers agree that metacognition is a skill that can both be taught and learned and is particularly useful in helping learners keep track of their understanding of an issue, organize and prioritize their attention and learning resources, and review their own progress. The current project seeks to utilize data from existing course assessments in an undergraduate large enrolment course, collected over the Winter 2019 and 2020 terms. To better understand how student learning and studying evolve when being prompted to reflect on these strategies in consequence to learning successes and/or challenges over a semester of study. Overall, students became better predictors of their actual grades with each successive assessment. Students scoring in the top 66% of the class became better predictors than students scoring in the bottom 33% during the progression of the term. Qualitative analysis of the extent to which inclusion of pre/post exam prompting and reflections on study habits influence predicted and actual achievement identified 3 themes in changes to study approaches that appear to influence grade predictions. First, students who appear to have refined the number of study techniques used became better predictors of their grades. Second, students who remained consistent with the number of study techniques used also became better predictors of their grades throughout the semester. Third, students who consistently experienced large gaps between their predicted and actual grades indicated using higher numbers of study techniques compared to the students with lower gaps. This study was conducted using an ethics protocol for human subjects approved by the University of Ottawa Research Ethics Board (H-08-19-4834).