ENABLING STUDENT SUCCESS THROUGH REFLECTION AND STUDY PLAN CREATION
Abstract
Enabling student success through Reflection And study Plan creation
Christopher Love
School of Environment and Science, Griffith Sciences, Griffith University
KEYWORDS: Student success, study plans, self-reflection.
SUBTHEME: Modes of Learning
PROBLEM
Are students entering university with the appropriate skills to be successful? First year students in large science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classes are required to navigate a large level of content and complex concepts. Combined with lowering university entry requirements, ‘first in family’ (>50%); students with English as a second language (32%); and those from low socio-economic backgrounds (21.2%) can significantly impact success and retention.
PLAN
The approach involved students evaluating and reflection on their performance then creating study plans to improve success on future assessment (online quizzes and the final examination). Students reflecting critically on their performance can guide their self-awareness, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and allow them to take greater ownership and responsibility which support students in becoming self-learners (Tsingos, etal., 2014; Chan & Lee, 2021).
ACTION
Students were asked to evaluate their performance after each quiz and reflect on how they studied for this assessment, then create a study plan to improve or maintain their performance. A simplified set of learning strategies that have been reported to improve performance were provided (Hora & Oleson, 2017; Sebesta & Speth, 2017) and two of these strategies were incorporated into their study plans.
REFLECTION
Our initial findings revealed that 66.1% of students reported that creating and using their study plan contributed to maintaining or improving their grade and student reflections supported this data. The most surprising element of this research was that 60.9% of students reported that they had never developed a study plan prior to this course (semester 2 of first year) suggesting that students were entering higher education without the necessary basic learning skills. Most students commented positively on the study plans supporting their learning, for example, “My experience with creating a study plan allowed me to identify my own strengths and weakness, strategies that work for me in learning and revising work and also making sure I stay on top of my work and being responsible of sticking to what I planned out.” Although many students reported that they didn’t fully enact their study plans due to competing assessment form other courses, personal life and work commitments. More concerning was the lack of motivation (7.2%) and metal health and wellbeing (11.6%) issues reported. Despite these issues there was an 11% increase in student success which demonstrate the impact of study plans and reflection on student success and highlighted the need to embed study skills in first-year courses.
REFERENCES
Chan, C.K.Y. & Lee, K.K.W. (2021) Educational Research Reviews, 32, 100376, 1-18.
Hora, M.T. & Oleson, A.K. (2017) International Journal of STEM Education, 4:1.
Sebesta, A.J. & Bray Speth, E. (2017) CBE – Life Sciences Education, 16, 1-12.
Tsingos C., Bosnic-Anticevich, S. & Smith, L. (2014) American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 78(1), 18.