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First-year students in South Africa in general experience problems in bridging the gap between school and university. This is no less the case at the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. Fewer than 50% of the first-year students complete their undergraduate studies within the minimum time limit set for the various degree programs. As a tool in academic support full-time first-year students complete the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI). Students score the inventory themselves and under guidance of specially trained academics discuss the implications of their scores in the various fields of the inventory in relation to the average LASSI score of successful students of previous years. Students on average found the LASSI helpful and that it enhanced metacognition. Students with a grade point average (GPA) of higher than 55% in the first term examinations had significantly higher LASSI scores in all the ten LASSI fields in comparison with students with a GPA lower than 55%.Female students, who had on average much higher pass rates than male students, scored significantly better in most of the LASSI fields.
In the changing political context in South Africa, universities and other tertiary education institutions are faced with increasing demands for better education for a growing student population, many of them underprepared for the demands of study at a tertiary institution.
When comparing the higher education scene of South Africa with that of other developed countries, a striking difference occurs in the structure of the system of higher education. In the USA for instance there are community colleges which absorb a very large proportion of post-secondary students. There are liberal arts colleges which accommodate the bulk of undergraduate studies. If one looks at the situation in South Africa it is clear that university study is the aim of most of the students.
Although technikon education from 1986 increased at a very high rate of approximately 18% per annum in contrast with the substantial annual growth rate of nearly 5% at universities, it will take a long time to rectify the imbalance of about three university students to every one technikon student to a more preferable ratio of at least one to one (RSA, 1993:9-10). This necessitates bridging programs as well as academic support programs for an increasing number of students at universities. The Potchefstroom University, as part of the affirmative action programme, instituted various bridging and academic support programs for certain groups of students who did not meet the normal entrance requirements.
First-year students in general experience problems in bridging the gap between school and university. This is no less the case at the Potchefstroom University. The failure rate at the end of the first-year of study is more or less that of the rest of the years of undergraduate study combined! A more or less stable pattern emerged during the past three decades. Fewer than 50% of the full-time first-year students complete their studies in the minimum time and about one third never complete their studies. It was clear that more than bridging and special programmes were needed. A striking feature was that female students were much more successful than male students (see table 1 and table 2).
| Faculty | Male | Female |
| Arts | 40 | 64 |
| Science | 42 | 68 |
| Economics and Management | 37 | 53 |
| Law | 28 | 41 |
| Pharmacy | 52 | 60 |
| Faculty | Male | Female |
| Arts | 32 | 21 |
| Science | 30 | 16 |
| Economics and Management | 32 | 24 |
| Law | 42 | 35 |
| Pharmacy | 16 | 16 |
If one considers the failure rates it is clear that more than half of the students who register for the first time at the University will encounter study problems and academic support will therefore be needed. A policy was adopted by the Senate of the University that every academic department must appoint and train subject mentors and learning facilitators for first-year students. The subject mentor (in most cases an academic who teaches first-year students) organises the learning facilitator system in the department and decides which students will be advised to attend the group learning sessions with the learning facilitators. The program was implemented to provide assistance and guidance to those first-year students who fare badly. This effort is for the benefit of the students who are encountering problems and are failing their tests.
Would a pro-active approach from which all freshmen can benefit not be more appropriate?
An academic orientation programme was instituted for all full-time first-year students. One of the main aims of this programme is the students' acceptance of responsibility for their own learning. Together with that the focus should be on metacognitive strategies rather than study skills. Study skills to be implemented depends on the situation: the aims and objectives of the course, the assignment given, the teaching style of the lecturer etc. The lecturers and learning facilitators in the academic department have a great responsibility in this respect.
On the macrolevel of studying the student must be aware of his or her own cognitive processes and products. A good learner is a person who accepts responsibility for his/her learning and who monitors his/her own progress. He or she is therefore a metalearner. Metacognition is an awareness of thought processes and skills involved in learning and the personal control of the knowledge of learning. Planning, monitoring and regulating strategies are typical metacognitive strategies.
It seems logical that an academic orientation programme for all first-year students must give students insight into and knowledge about themselves as learners. It is argued that if the student has insight into his/her own learning and study strategies, the metacognitive processes will be enhanced and the result will hopefully be better academic achievements. A positive change in a student's learning approach and learning strategies will not occur in the short term, therefore the academic orientation programme for freshmen has to be complemented with guidance by both lecturers and learning facilitators. Both lecturer and the learning facilitator regularly have to ask about the student's planning, monitoring, self regulation and management of resources.
The Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) was developed by Claire Weinstein and David Palmer (1988). It consists of ten scales (77 items), and each scale provides information on an important variable which influences learning. The scales are attitude (interest and desire to work on academic tasks), motivation (self-discipline, desire to work hard, taking responsibility), time management (organised, systemised and productive use of time), anxiety (nervousness and tension facing tests), concentration (ability to focus attention on academic work as well as activities related to studying), information processing (strategies of organisation, elaboration, reasoning and comprehension), selecting main ideas (ability to decide what to underline in order to concentrate on key points and to interrelate ideas), study aids (making diagrams, underlining the text, reading summaries, titles and words in italics), self testing (checking the comprehension level reached, formulating questions before, during and after classes) and test strategies (knowing the different test types, the necessary preparation for each and various strategies to study and remember the material).
During the first of three academic orientation sessions every student marks his/her own inventory. Individual scores in the various fields are compared with the average score of successful freshmen of the previous year in order to identify possible deficiencies in their learning and study strategies. During the following two academic orientation sessions the scales are explained by trained staff and students are assisted in evaluating themselves as learners. Academics lecturing first-year students are encouraged to attend workshops where the LASSI inventory and the meaning of the profiles are explained.
Students who obtained a GPA above 55% scored higher in each of the individual LASSI-scales. The LASSI can consequently be used as a tool in learning development.
| LASSI field | Lower than or equal to 55% (n = 700) | Above 55% (n = 1,651) | *P-value |
| Attitude | 31.7 | 32.9 | 0.000 |
| Motivation | 29.4 | 31.5 | 0.000 |
| Time management | 24.5 | 25.7 | 0.000 |
| Anxiety | 25.0 | 26.4 | 0.000 |
| Concentration | 27.1 | 28.9 | 0.000 |
| Information processing | 28.1 | 29.3 | 0.000 |
| Selecting main ideas | 17.4 | 18.2 | 0.000 |
| Study aids | 27.4 | 27.9 | 0.000 |
| Self testing | 26.5 | 27.3 | 0.000 |
| Test and examination strategies | 28.7 | 30.6 | 0.000 |
| * P < 0.05 | |||
The difference in pass rates for male and female students in terms of graduation in the minimum time as referred to in Tables 1 and 2 can partially be explained by the results in Table 4.
| LASSI field | Male (n = 1,072) | Female (n = 1,279) | P-value |
| Attitude | 32.3 | 32.8 | 0.000 |
| Motivation | 30.2 | 31.5 | 0.000 |
| Time management | 24.8 | 25.8 | 0.000 |
| Anxiety | 26.8 | 25.3 | 0.000 |
| Concentration | 28.2 | 28.5 | 0.000 |
| Information processing | 28.5 | 29.4 | 0.000 |
| Selecting main ideas | 18.1 | 17.9 | 0.000 |
| Study aids | 26.3 | 29.0 | 0.000 |
| Self testing | 26.2 | 27.8 | 0.000 |
| Test and examination strategies | 30.1 | 30.1 | 0.000 |
| P < 0.05 | |||
Female students scored significantly higher than male students in six of the ten LASSI fields. The only field where male students scored significantly higher was anxiety. Anxiety is the only LASSI field where a higher score can have a negative connotation. Too much anxiety and nervousness can negatively affect achievement in tests and examinations.
What do students think about the use of the LASSI learning development purposes? One must bear in mind that not all the students who attend the academic orientation program have study problems. The fact of the matter is that many of them, according to their final school examination results, must have very good learning strategies and skills.
A group of 126 first-year students of 1996, representative of two faculties, completed a questionnaire on the academic orientation program. No significant differences were found between the students of the two faculties. Only 6.4% were of the opinion that a general academic orientation for first-year students is unnecessary, 17.6% were unsure while 76% were in favour of such orientation. Of the respondents 27.2% found the three sessions very useful, 40.8% useful, 22.4% to a certain extent useful and only 9.6% found the sessions of no use. Comparing their own LASSI scores with those of successful students of previous years gave the majority of students better comprehension of themselves as learners. Only 7.3% found it useless while 17% found it of limited use.
Presenters' views of the academic orientation program during 1996 were all strongly in favour of an academic orientation course. Fifteen were in favour of using LASSI as an instrument to do it, one was unsure and only one against.
The problem identified by most presenters (10) was the time at which the academic orientation course was presented. Students are bombarded by new information during the orientation period and at that stage academic matters are not on the forefront. A better time to offer the course would be a week or two after commencement of the academic year.
RSA. Republic of South Africa. Department of National Education. (1993). Report NATED 02-300(93/12).
Weinstein, C.E. & Palmer, D. (1988). Learning and studies skills inventory. NCS Trans-Optic EP 30-27841, 321.
| Author: Paul du Plessis Bureau for Academic Support Services Potchefstroom University for CHE, South Africa Email: bassjpdp@puknet.puk.ac.za Fax: (148) 299-2720 Please cite as: du Plessis, P. (1996). Learning and study strategies inventory as a tool in academic support. Different Approaches: Theory and Practice in Higher Education. Proceedings HERDSA Conference 1996. Perth, Western Australia, 8-12 July. http://www.herdsa.org.au/confs/1996/duplessis.html |