How effective is teaching learning strategies on student achievement?
March 22, 2019The Effect of Teaching “Learning Strategies” on Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis Study: Two recent studies have been published in Turkey on the topic of teaching learning strategies. Both studies are meta-analyses that examine the effect of learning strategies on student academic achievement. Learning strategies are methods for teaching students how to learn, how to remember, and how to think. Learning strategies involve some simple study skills such as underlying the main idea in a text or complex thinking processes such employing analogies or using analysis to relate prior knowledge to new information. Learning strategies have been classified as rehearsal strategies, elaboration strategies, organizational strategies, comprehension monitoring strategies, and affective strategies.
Both meta-analyses find teaching learning strategies has a significant positive effect size on student achievement. These studies support research on this topic conducted by Hattie, Biggs, and Purdie (1996) and Donker et al. (2014) that revealed an overall medium effect size on student achievement for teaching learning strategies. Both studies find that teaching learning strategies is effective at all levels of education and is most effective in the early grades. The Bas study reveals there was no significant difference between effect sizes in terms of SES or with regard to setting (rural or urban). The Yildirim study concludes that teaching learning strategies can be incorporated into the normal curricula or taught independently. Learning strategies that were found to be effective include; repetition, sense-making, integrated strategies, organizing, and monitoring comprehension.
Citation:
Study 1: Bas, G., & Beyhan, Ö. (2019). Revisiting the Effect of Teaching of Learning Strategies on Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Findings. International Journal of Research in Education and Science, 5(1), 70-87.
Study 2: YILDIRIM, I., CIRAK-KURT, S., & SEN, S. (2019). The Effect of Teaching” Learning Strategies” on Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis Study. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research (EJER), (79).
Link:
Study 1: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1198049.pdf
Study 2: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1204464.pdf