Students’, Teachers’, and Parents’ Knowledge About and Perceptions of Learning Strategies

Previous research has demonstrated that students have imperfect knowledge about learning strategies. Moreover, very little is known about teachers’ and parents’ knowledge about learning strategies, which is important as these groups can help to model and teach students effective strategies. The goal of the present research was to add to this literature by measuring students’, teachers’, and parents’ beliefs about several learning strategies that have received empirical scrutiny, using methodology that builds upon prior work. To do so, participants were presented with a series of learning scenarios exemplifying a different learning strategy and rated each individually on effectiveness, familiarity, and their likelihood of using (or recommending) it in the future. Participants had accurate knowledge about effective strategies, rating retrieval practice and distributed study as the most effective learning strategies. There were variations within groups on their levels of familiarity with each strategy, which may have informed their ratings of effectiveness. For instance, participants rated interleaving as less effective compared to blocking but were also less familiar with the former. On a positive note, these outcomes suggest that people generally have good knowledge about learning strategies and underscore the importance of a broad dissemination of educational research.