Organisation Strategies

Organisation strategies help the learner to select appropriate information and construct connections among the information to be learned (see Pintrich et al., 1991). For example, a student may divide the material into paragraphs, themes and units to be able to follow her/his own progress and to ease her/his tasks. Some students cluster, outline and select the main ideas in the text to help them understand the material better. According to Pintrich et al. (1991), ‘organisation is an active, effortful endeavour and results in the learner being closely involved in the task.’

Research on strategy use and information processing suggests that students gain a deeper level of comprehension when they use elaboration and organisational strategies in contrast to simple rehearsal strategies (Garcia and Pintrich, 1994;

Entwistle and Marton, 1984). Not all students use these strategies, including some of those who have been taught to use them. Students who have a self-schema of a

‘good strategy user’ (Pressley, 1986) may be more likely to use the appropriate cognitive strategies. According to Garcia and Pintrich (1994), it is not enough for

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teachers to teach good strategy use; individual students must construct the self-schema of a good strategy user for themselves.

Table 6.2.3.1. Organisation strategies

I first read my class notes from my exercise book and then the book and then again the exercise book. It helps when the material in the notebook is summarised

I underline and write background notes about the material in question

I underline important points, and then read my notes and the underlined material I underline and write notes in order to learn more efficiently

* I revise the most important points and I skip other ones, or I do not study them as thoroughly as the important ones.

I don’t revise a less important section, and try to study more important sections thoroughly

If there is too much to study and I know that I will run out of time halfway through, I select what I believe are the most important sections of the course and learn those

I read a paragraph once, after which I write a summary of it

I pick 3-5 entities (depending on the nature of the subject matter). I write notes on them from memory in pencil. I then check the book and correct my notes in pen

I write a summary that I will read up until the exam

I glance at the texts first, write notes, and then outline the sections that seem most important

I read the subject in sections, recapping in my mind the material after each section. I often then read the section again

I scan through the exam sections and remember the most important points

I scan through the exam material in order to build a complete picture. Now I know exactly what I am reading and in what order, and this helps me avoid a panic in the face of an overwhelming revision load I divide the material to be revised into parts and then attempt to read/clear one part at a time

I divide the exam subject into parts, pieces or topic groups, so I know all the time where I am at In order to learn efficiently I read for example, the piece, followed by the notes I made in the lesson, and then I deliberate it to myself and set myself questions

I concentrate and read through the text as well as all the material while trying to understand

117 6.2.4. Critical Thinking

The last category of cognitive strategy included in this study is critical thinking. It can be defined as the student’s ability to apply previous knowledge to new situations in order to solve problems, reach decisions, or make critical evaluations with respect to standards of excellence (Pintrich and McKeachie, 2000). There are some disagreements among researchers about the nature of these strategies (see, for example, Lipman, 1991 and Norris, 1992). It seems that they are domain and discipline specific strategies (see Pintrich and McKeachie, 2000).

In some studies, critical thinking strategies are classified as metacognitive strategies. That is not the case in this study. The formulation of the open-ended question in this study did not really allow the students to respond with critical thinking strategies of a traditional type. That is why all the answers in which students seemed to reflect on their prior knowledge were either efforts to code and understand the new material (for example, Student A in Table 6.2.4.1) or to avoid mistakes made earlier (Student B). Another version of this strategy is to focus on material which has caused difficulties in the past (Student C). The strategy of learning from one’s earlier mistakes has been classified here in the critical thinking category. It is an important strategy, which has not been studied very much in spite of its popularity as a teaching method students have all been forced to correct their mistakes from time to time.

Table 6.2.4.1. Critical thinking

A) If I do not understand the course material, I try to understand if I do not understand, I take my maths book which explains the course

B) …and then I look at the test which we have had earlier and I look at the mistakes I made and I try to understand them to avoid remaking them

C) If there is a lot to study and I know that I do not have time to read it all, I concentrate on the most important matters with which I have had problems earlier

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