Enhancing the learning proficiency of students in higher education

Abstract

Higher education is facing world-wide a number of problems such as: adjusting to larger and more homogeneous student populations, increasing the number of graduating students, and preparing them for lifelong learning. Enhancing students' learning proficiency can make a substantial contribution to solving each of these major concerns. Taking the growing knowledge base on self-regulated learning as a background, this article presents a project that aimed at the design and evaluation of a powerful learning environment for improving university's freshmen's learning proficiency. More specifically the intervention in this environment focused on the trainability of four cognitive (orienting, planning, self-testing, and reflecting), and four complementary affective (respectively self-judging, valuing, coping and attributing) skills. The effects of the learning environment were investigated using a pretest-posttest design with control group. The participants were 141 first year students of business economics. The major positive effects of the intervention on the learning proficiency and the academic performance of the students in the experimental group are summarized and illustrated mainly for two of the eight self-regulation skills, namely orienting (evaluating one's competencies in view of an accurate appraisal of the efforts needed to approach and accomplish a learning task).