Kelly Keus, Neil Haave
Many students inhabit a learning culture in which the dominant study strategy is to memorize-regurgitate-purge which leads to superficial learning (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014). In order to promote deep learning that connects to students’ life goals, we developed a learning philosophy (LP) assignment which promotes students’ metacognition of their learning. Metacognition is known to promote student learning outcomes (Coutinho, 2007; Girash, 2014; Tanner, 2012). Our study was designed to determine whether our LP assignment promoted students’ specific learning outcomes (i.e., exam performance) and whether student construction of their LP promoted their general learning outcomes (i.e., intellectual development) as indicated by their cognitive complexity. Specific learning outcomes were determined by comparing the difference between students’ performance on their final and midterm exams using a one-tailed t-test between student cohorts (+/- LP). General learning outcomes were assessed using the Learning Environment Preferences (LEP) Survey (Moore, 1989) which returns a cognitive complexity index indicating their level of intellectual development on the Perry Scheme. Between the two exams and the two LEP surveys students were given feedback on their developing learning philosophy which addressed how, what, and why they learn. Feedback pushed students to consider how their learning was helping them to become who they wanted to be (e.g., a professional) and to consider the evidence that their current learning strategies were useful for attaining their goals and if, based on their evidence (e.g., exam performance), alternative study strategies should be considered. Our study was approved by our research ethics board and permitted us to use course and survey data with students’ consent. We found that our LP assignment could positively impact students’ general and specific learning outcomes, but this influence was dependent upon instructor and student year level. Qualitative analysis of students’ written LPs indicated that all students were engaged in metacognition of their learning but that senior students were better equipped to regulate their learning strategies.
