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Project

How students learn: answers from a neuro-educational research perspective.

This interdisciplinary research proposal starts from the observation that the current empirical research on how students' process their learning in higher education has lead to contradictory results on how students learn The inconsistent results can be partially explained by an overreliance on self-report instruments to measure students' processing strategies and avoidance of more direct observation techniques. Today, brain-imaging studies are upcoming in the research domain of educational neurosciences and allow to move beyond the use of self-report measures and to directly observe processing strategies when students learn. Brain-imaging studies (such as fMRI) track the cerebral activation patterns underlying the learning processes and may yield in combination with self-report measures a more comprehensive picture on students' processing strategies. Three research questions are central: (1) what is the neural basis of processing strategies of students in higher education?; (2) How is the neural basis of processing strategies related to processing strategies as measured with self-report measures? (3) Do students use different processing strategies for different discipline specific study-tasks? The project will be organized in two phases: a pilot study followed by a main study. In the pilot study, self-report techniques (thinking-aloud protocols and self-report questionnaires) are used to investigate whether students use different processing strategies for different study tasks in four different domains. In the main study, students' processing strategies will be measured by means of a self-report techniques and by means of an fMRI study. The results of this project can have important implications for present theory development on processing strategies, for our understanding of the brain mechanisms in students' processing strategies and how these individual differences can be adequately measured.
Date:1 Oct 2014 →  30 Sep 2018
Keywords:LEARNING STRATEGIES, COGNITIVE PROCESSES
Disciplines:Neurosciences, Biological and physiological psychology, Cognitive science and intelligent systems, Developmental psychology and ageing, Education curriculum, Education systems, General pedagogical and educational sciences, Specialist studies in education, Other pedagogical and educational sciences