University students generally work with large amounts of written course material which they need to process and learn in order to pass exams. However, knowing how to learn from texts in the context of academic learning is highly complex and cognitively demanding. To help students to better manage their learning from texts, this thesis focuses specifically on the following research question:
“To what extent can we stimulate first year university students’ comprehension, summarising, and metacognitive strategy use to improve their measured and perceived performance on learning from text using a newly developed strategy training programme which can be both used integrated in or isolated from content courses? ”
This thesis is based on a strategic learning approach. This is a theoretical framework that I have developed by analysing and bringing together different scientific movements. To answer the above-mentioned research question, three studies were conducted. These studies are closely related and have more value when considered as a trinity. One study involved the development of a teaching programme of metacognitive strategies and reading. The programme consists of six sessions (one per week) lasting around 90 minutes, using a scaffolding approach. The aim is that, by the end of the programme, participants will be able to: 1 estimate the amount of work on a text based on its length and perceived difficulty, 2 identify the main ideas of a text, 3 organize the text according to their own logic using the strategies they have learnt, 4 apply the strategies they have learnt, 5 work more efficiently and quickly when learning from texts, 6 identify their strengths and weaknesses more easily when learning from texts, and 7 act accordingly.
While the first study consists of an interesting theoretical conception of a strategy teaching programme, a second study tests the programme's tenacity in a real-life experimental setting. In other words: this study tests the above-mentioned strategy teaching programme to see how well this theoretically sound design actually helps students in their first year at university. Not surprisingly, the transition from high school to higher education represents a real rupture (Romainville, 2010). First-year university students voluntarily signed up as participants and were semi-randomly divided into three experimental groups. The groups were differentiated by their specific reading and summarizing strategies: 1 structured summarising, 2 self-questioning and 3 concept mapping.
The short-term results of the IRMSU show an overall growth on the IRMSU as a whole, as well as on the metacognitive scale, the elaboration and regulation scale, and the information organisation scale. The procrastination scale showed no significant difference.
Long-term results were relatively complicated to interpret due to the large number of drop-outs. The conclusions drawn here should be interpreted as indicative, not affirmative.
The final study focuses on the development and validation of the data collection instruments for measuring the impact of the experimental study. To measure participants' use of strategies, the ‘Inventory of reading and metacognitive Strategy Use' (IRMSU) was developed as well as strategy rubrics.
