Assessing Strategic Learning Behaviour

Informal or formal assessment was an essential precursor to teaching learning strategies. Informal methods include collections of student work (portfolios) (Olson, Platt, & Dieker., 2008), relatively unstructured interviews (Sattler, 1998), exhibitions in which students presented what they know in meetings with teachers, parents and other members of the community (The Coalition for Essential Schools, 2006), and short assessments of usually factual information called probes (Olson et al., 2008). Formal methods of assessment included norm-referenced tests, which required uniform test conditions so that students’ performance could be compared to the norm group (Weller & Brandhorst, 1991), and criterion-referenced tests, which compared students’ performance with their own past performance in order to assess their level of mastery of a subject (Olson et al., 2008).

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In part due to the influence of developments in research in education and cognitive psychology, recent methods for assessing learning strategies were more comprehensive and nuanced than previously, incorporating more concepts and complex scales and sub-scales (Entwistle & McCune, 2004). Previous instruments were characterized by low reliability, lack of empirical validation and a focus on how students study rather than identifying skills deficiencies (Weinstein, Zimmermann, & Palmer, 1988).

However, the proliferation of self-report Likert-type measures of learning and study strategies with different purposes and theoretical underpinnings led to both conceptual and terminological confusion. The same terminology was used in different ways across measures, and multiple terms were used to describe the same concepts (Entwistle & McCune, 2004).

Nevertheless, Entwistle and McCune’s (2004) summary of six leading measures of learning strategies found that each consisted of three primary concepts, namely deep processing variables, surface processing variables, and achieving-related variables. Similarly, Cano-Garcia and Justicia-Justicia (1994) used factor analyses to show the degree of similarity between multi-dimensional measures of learning strategies. Muis, Winne, and Jamieson‐Noel (2007) found considerable conceptual overlap between the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory.

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The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), and the Meta- cognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI), which they suggested shared conceptions of main ideas/organization, elaboration, self-regulation and evaluation. They nevertheless found a lack of convergent validity between the measures, and concluded that the various scales measure different aspects of self-regulated learning, with LASSI being better at measuring processes of encoding, MSLQ motivation, and MAI meta-cognition (Muis et al., 2007).

Whilst these findings may be used to guide the selection of assessment instruments for different purposes, LASSI showed the highest discriminant validity across the four sub-scales evaluated (Muis et al., 2007). Moreover, LASSI was arguably more practical and versatile than other measures because it went beyond the assessment of how students studied by including strategies which could be taught (Entwistle & McCune, 2004). In this respect and others, it explicitly addressed the perceived deficiencies of previous attempts to assess learning and study strategies. Its scores were generally regarded as robust, and its strategies shown to be positively correlated with academic performance (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). The current version, LASSI-2, represents an attempt to refine the original in certain key respected, including psychometrics, the normative sample, the broadening of scale concepts, and the inclusion of the latest academic practices and research (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). Although little research had been conducted using LASSI-2, the versatility and robustness of the original, combined with LASSI-2’s various refinements, were the basis for its selection as the focus for the present study.

69 2.4.5 LASSI-2

Designed in 1987 (Weinstein, Palmer, & Schulte, 1987) after nine years’ development at the University of Texas, Austin, the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) is a self-report instrument used to assess students’ study and learning strategies and methods (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). It focused on behaviours, attitudes, motivations and beliefs that were associated with successful retention of learning in an academic setting (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002).

In contrast to previous instruments, the LASSI’s range of applications was not confined only to the assessment of students’ learning strategies, but included raising students’ awareness of their strengths and weaknesses; targeting, planning and measuring the success of remedial interventions; measuring academic success; drawing attention to specific academic material and used as a tool for counselling in various academic settings (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002).

The scales on students’ learning and study strategies were measured based on two distinct models: a model of strategic learning (Weinstein, 1994; Cano, 2006), and a general model of learning and cognition (Simon, 1979). The former was the source of three broad categories which were thought to explain successful learning skill, will and self-regulation. Into these, ten further categories, derived from cognitive psychology, were subsumed.

The skill component of the LASSI consisted of information processing, selecting main ideas, and test strategies. Information processing was concerned with how

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effectively students used information resources to bridge the divide between what they already knew and what they were trying to learn and remember (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). The selecting main ideas criterion measured students’ ability to identify key points in a lecture or text, and whether they could discriminate between main ideas and supporting information (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). The test strategies scale assessed the effectiveness of students’ preparation and test-taking strategies for a variety of different types of exam (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002).

The Anxiety scale was concerned with how much students worry about their studies, and the extent to which this compromised their ability to concentrate (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). Attitude scale on the other hand, measured the clarity of students’ goals, and the strength of their commitment to their academic studies (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002) while motivation scale gauged students’ preparedness to invest the level of effort required to meet the demands of their studies (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002).

Self-regulation scale comprised concentration, self-testing, study aids and time management. Concentration scale measured how easily students were distracted and how well they could focus on their studies (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). The self- testing scale on the other hand assessed students’ ability to review and monitor their level of understanding (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002) while the study aids was concerned with students’ use of organizational tools and practice exercises (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). Lastly, the time management scale measured the effectiveness of students’ management of their academic schedules, including

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organising their time, planning, and management of conflicting priorities and unforeseen problems (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002).

The LASSI instrument is a popular measurement and has been used to gauge the learning and study skills strategies (Cano, 2006; Deming et al., 1994), as a diagnostic and prescriptive tool to assess study skills of secondary school students with learning disabilities (Benz, Fabian, & Nelson, 1996), and examined the academic achievement of gifted college bound students (Schumacker, Bembry, & Sayler, 1995).