Changes to Students' Learning Processes Following Instruction on the Topic

Previous research indicates that students' learning styles, as assessed by the Inventory of Learning Processes (ILP; Schmeck, Ribich, & Ramanaiah, 1977), change during college. Additionally, prior research indicates that teaching students about their learning styles enables them to change those learning styles. The current study investigated the effect of teaching students about effective learning processes in general to determine if this would alter their learning processes. Twenty-six Cognitive Psychology students completed the ILP 1 week before and 1 week following instruction on the topic of effective learning processes. The students' scores on the Deep Processing and Elaborative Processing subscales significantly increased from before instruction to after instruction, which is substantial given the significant relations between scores on these subscales and academic achievement. (Contains 1 table.)