Integrated writing tasks that involve different language modalities such as reading and listening have increasingly been used as means to assess academic writing. Thus, there is a need for understanding how test-takers coordinate different skills to complete these tasks. This study explored second language writers' strategy use and its…

Community colleges across the United States face a difficult challenge. On the one hand, they are "open access" institutions, with a mission to serve students from all backgrounds and at varying levels of college readiness. On the other hand, they must uphold high academic standards in order to maintain accreditation and prepare students…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effectiveness of incorporating study strategies in a developmental mathematics/college algebra program. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a quasiexperimental methodology. Results show that students reported increases on the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI)…

This study examined lecture capture as a way of enhancing university education, and explored how students with different learning approaches used lecture capturing (i.e., podcasts and vodcasts). Results indicate that both deep and surface learners report increased course satisfaction and better retention of knowledge in courses with traditional…

In this study we observed college students' behavior on two self-tailored, multiple-choice exams. Self-tailoring was defined as an option to omit up to five items from being scored on an exam. Participants, 80 undergraduate college students enrolled in two sections of an educational psychology course, statistically significantly improved their…

Environmental context can affect memory retrieval in a wide range of situations. The authors investigate the relationship between the location of a collegiate final examination and student performance. Although several other studies have looked at the impact of environmental context on test taking, this study does so in a real-world environment,…

The main purpose of this study was to compare the strategies used by Chinese-speaking students when confronted with familiar versus unfamiliar topics in a multiple-choice format reading comprehension test. The focus was on describing what students do when they are taking reading comprehension tests by asking students to verbalize their thoughts.…

The purpose of this action research case study was to explore attitudes and beliefs regarding strategies to improve math placement scores for low-socioeconomic community college students at an urban campus. Using a pragmatic worldview, qualitative techniques were used to gather data to explore this problem at a single community college located in…

According to the recent Nation's Report Card, 12th-graders failed to produce gains on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) despite earning better grades on average. One possible explanation is that 12th-graders were not motivated taking the NAEP, which is a low-stakes test. We develop three Bayesian IRT mixture models to…

This article investigates the strategies that EFL students used and how they adjusted these strategies in response to various listening test tasks. The test tasks involved four forms of listening support: previewing questions, repeated input, background information preparation, and vocabulary instruction. Twenty-two participants were enlisted and…

Objective: Previous research has found ADHD symptoms to be common in the general population but has not compared endorsement of symptoms between ADHD and non-ADHD groups. This study examines self-reported ADHD symptoms and academic complaints in college students. Method: Students without (n = 496) and with ADHD (n = 38) completed a questionnaire…

We examined test-expectancy as it applies to fill-in-the-blank tests. We randomly assigned 60 college students to take a fill-in-the-blank vocabulary test in one of three conditions. Two groups took the test with a word bank available; we told one group but not the other that they would have a word bank. The third group took the test with no word…

Test-taking strategies are important cognitive skills that strongly affect students' performance in tests. Using appropriate test-taking strategies improves students' achievement and grades, improves students' attitudes toward tests and reduces test anxiety. This results in improving test accuracy and validity. This study aimed at developing a…

Following up on the general framework of the research study of Yip (2007), this article sets out a similar research question, investigating the differences between high and low academic achieving Hong Kong university students based on their different learning and study strategies. In this study, we recruited 100 university students who pursued…

Historically, first-generation, low-income, and students with disabilities have had very high attrition rates at California Community Colleges and institutions of higher education in general. Based on figures compiled by the National Center for Educational Statistics in 2004, 4.5 million low-income, first-generation college students comprise…