Identifying students at risk through ineffective study strategies

Abstract

As the proportion of students entering higher education rises, difficulties caused by inadequate preparation also increase. An ongoing study is developing a computer-based system to identify students whose study skills and strategies appear to be ineffective, which will also provide advice to students that is to some extent targeted to their individual needs. This paper concentrates on the first stages of this project which have involved developing an appropriate questionnaire and inventory, and ensuring that the inventory is technically sound. This instrument is a revised version of the Approaches to Studying Inventory, designed to identify students with weak study strategies. The main part of the project has involved developing a computer-based package to support both staff and students in improving study skills. It allows students to complete the inventory interactively on computer, and staff to collect data from a whole class and so identify students who seem to need help with their study skills or strategies. The paper concludes with a discussion of the rationale underlying the form in which advice is being provided to students, and a brief description of the ways in which that advice is being structured and presented to students within a HyperCard system.