Poster #4 - “How Did You Study the Passage?”: Exploring Linkages Between Basic Cognitive, Academic, and Study Skills

• In Event: Poster Session 14

Abstract

The ability to study and retain information from content-relevant text passages is a critical skill for success in the classroom. Researchers have documented the role of study skills in the academic success of university students (e.g., Crede & Kuncel, 2008). Yet few studies have examined strategic study behaviors (e.g, taking notes) in elementary school students (for an exception, see Brown & Smiley, 1978). Moreover, less is understood about how students acquire these skills and the factors that are associated with their effective use. Coffman et al. (2019) found associations between children’s organizational memory strategies and later strategic study behaviors. Thus, study skills may be related to general cognitive skills. Additionally, numerous studies have longitudinally linked both domain-general (e.g., executive functions) and domain-specific (e.g., literacy abilities) skills to academic performance and strategy selection (e.g., Passolunghi & Lanfranci, 2012; Suggate et al., 2018; Lemaire & Lecacheur, 2011). Nevertheless, associations between academic skills, basic cognitive abilities, and strategic studying have not been examined in elementary students. 
 
As part of a longitudinal study, children were followed across early elementary school. A subsample of 102 students participated in a study skills task (adapted from Brown & Smiley, 1978) that was administered via Zoom at the end of second grade. Students were given four minutes to remember a grade-level, non-fiction passage and given a highlighter, pencil, and blank piece of paper. Recall was then assessed as the total units of information the children remembered. Study strategies (e.g., taking notes, rereading, underlining) were observed and given a score ranging from 0 (not present) to 3 (strategic and systematic focus on key information). A composite strategy score was created using the average rating of the observed strategies. These scores were related to measures of the children’s performance on a battery of academic and cognitive skills that had been administered during the kindergarten year, including assessments of reading fluency (Woodcock et al., 2001) and cognitive flexibility (Dimensional Change Card Sort; Gerson et al., 2013). 
 
Preliminary analyses revealed that children engaged in a range of study behaviors, such as rereading (89.4% of students), highlighting (48.9%), and taking notes (37.2%) but varied in how strategically they employed study behaviors (Mean=2.00, SD=0.66). Notably, strategy use positively predicted recall of the details of the studied passages (p<.001, β=.358).  
 
To better understand the role of both academic and basic cognitive skills in task performance, we examined the predictive value of kindergarten skills. Regression results revealed that strategy use was predicted by cognitive flexibility (p=.002, β=.374) but not reading fluency (p=.074, β=.205). Notably, the opposite findings occurred for recall performance, with reading fluency being a significant predictor (p=.001, β =.375) of recall but not cognitive flexibility (p=.166, β =.158).   
 
These findings provide evidence that young children are capable of spontaneous study behaviors. Moreover, the results suggest that broad cognitive skills may be more closely associated with strategic behaviors and academic abilities may be more closely linked to recall performance while studying informational texts.  

Authors

• Amber Elizabeth Westover, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Presenting Author

• Shelby L Finch

• Sydney Alexis Revell, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Peter A Ornstein, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Jennifer L Coffman, University of North Carolina at Greensboro