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The study guide is a manual which structures study efforts and attempts to enhance the learning to be derived from textbooks by encouraging the student to process the texts in certain ways. In this sense, the study guide constitutes a framework for the course and can often be considered as the outline of an instructional system.
The study guides developed by publishers to accompany their textbooks are generally meant to be used as adjuncts, within a larger system of formal instruction via classes. Those developed by distance-teaching institutions, on the other hand, often constitute the primary instructional system itself. The majority of students in such institutions generally study on their own without attending classes. The study guide is of primary importance in these situations. Consider the alternative of not having study guides at all in such courses: the students would simply be told to study certain texts or text selections and would be left on their own to prepare for their exams. Few people would consider this a satisfactory instructional system.
There are thus many uses of a study guide. It can be used simply as an adjunct to a text within the context of a traditional teaching situation, or it can be used as the principal means of communicating the structure of a course and directing student learning. It is this latter case which is the most interesting to consider, for in the former case, the usefulness of the study guide will depend largely on the degree of structure and support offered by the teacher. It is within the independent study situation, therefore, that I shall consider the various functions of the study guide.
III. General functions
The first purpose of a study guide is to map out the specific context of a course. Unless a textbook is specifically written for a particular course, the course need to be mapped out in a way which communicates to the students both the topics to be studied and the sequence in which to study them.
It is indeed rare that a text produced for a given student audience (for instance, a college audience) will be fully appropriate for a somewhat different audience (such as practitioners working toward a professional designation). Thus, professors usually tailor the contents of a course to the perceived academic and practical needs of their students. Selected readings from textbooks and other sources are then determined as appropriate to these needs and assigned as readings for the course.
The study guide serves the purpose of indicating exactly which sections of texts should be studied and which can be overlooked. The study guide also serves the purpose of breaking down the course content into study units of a manageable size (in the case of my own institution-a distance-teaching institution-each course is partitioned into 15 assignments representing perhaps 3 hours or so of initial independent study).
An important advantage of the study guide as a document which is distinct from the text materials themselves lies in its great flexibility: modifying a study guide (and hence the course) to reflect an updated curriculum is much more feasible than modifying and reprinting a text.
The second purpose of the study guide, after specifying the course contents, is to provide assistance to the students in learning these contents. The aim is to help the student understand the text and study it in such a way that its contents are later remembered. While the first purpose of the study guide is to indicate what to study, its second purpose is to suggest to the student how hl should study to maximize learning and retention. The various design features of the study guide which are included in each study guide assignment are directed at facilitating the learning process itself.
This is an elaborate subject, which will be explored in the remainder of this paper. First I will examine the specific functions involved in this area: then I will explore how these functions are (or can be implemented in practice through the selection and design of appropriate components, such as topic outlines sets of questions on the subject matter, etc. In the process, I will be working toward a general description of what might be viewed as an ideal study guide.
IV. Specific functions
As indicated earlier, the general functions of a study guide are two fold: (i) to map out the course and break it down into assignments of manageable size: and (ii) to direct and assist the student in learning the content of each assignment. This latter function is of most concern to us here.
It is useful first to consider the learning needs of students in studying an assignment and, hence, to examine what functions various components might play in filling these needs. This can then be followed by an examination of specific components and a consideration of how they fulfil these functions.
The general role of an assignment in guiding and assisting student learning can be partitioned into four somewhat distinct functions:
- orientation
- task direction
- learning assistance
- self-assessment.
Each of these are briefly considered in turn below.
1. Orientation
It is useful for the student to start studying an assignment with a general idea of what will be encountered in the assignment. This idea is ingrained in current educational thinking and supported by research on learning (Hartley and Davis, 1976). Ausubel (1968) has made a strong case that a preliminary framework of what is to come (this is what he has called an advance organizer) can greatly facilitate learning, and he has demonstrated its practical utility. A general framework sets the scope of the assignment and indicates how the assignment fits into the total course. It also indicates how the assignment topics are partitioned and interrelated. It can furthermore serve to show the relevance of the assignment for the student.
Another aspect of orientation is goal-setting. It is useful for the student to be aware in studying an assignment of the goals he is expected to reach while studying (Melton, 1978). An awareness of goals will enable him to concentrate his efforts in reaching them and will help him keep his learning efforts in perspective as he progresses with the assignment. Contrast goal-directed study with an alternative situation in which the student does not quite know what importance to give to the various parts of the content provided in an assignment. An awareness of goals will lead to more organized study and better learning on the part of the student (Duchastel and Merrill, 1973).
2. Task direction
This is a fairly straightforward function of an assignment. Directions indicate to the student which text chapters (in full or in part), and which other materials such as associated readings or problems, need to be read or completed for the assignment.
3. Learning assistance
Learning is a process in which a number of conditions need to be satisfied (Gagne, 1970) and in which many difficulties need to be overcome if comprehension and retention are to be achieved (Duchastel, 1982). A textbook is essentially a presentation of the material to be learned and usually no more than that. Some materials are quickly understood and easily retained following a casual reading of the text. Other contents require much more than simply reading the text however. Effective learning is thus the result of an interaction between the content to be learned and the strategies employed by the student in studying (O'Neil, 1978).
This interaction is complex topic and its forms will only be briefly sketched here as they relate to the functions of the study guide. In this sense, the learning assistance function discussed here is a general function comprised of various more specific functions and processes.
Learning is considered to comprise a selective process, a generative process, and a rehearsal process. More generally, studying is a self-monitoring process which adapts learning strategies to the type of content to be learned.
The selective nature of learning derives from the fact that a student cannot or will not learn everything in a text in an equal manner. Study time and a student'' general willingness are generally limited, such that his attention and efforts need to be directed to what are considered by the teacher to be the essential or minimal contents to be mastered.
Text contents are of uneven importance. A text discourse is a complex structure in which are embedded essential ideas surrounded and supported by contextual ideas of greater or lesser importance to the understanding and appreciation of the primary ideas. An interesting way to view a text is as a summary surrounded by a supportive context (Duchastel, 1983b).
An essential part of instruction lies in assisting the student to focus on the essential, i.e., to facilitate selective processing on his part. This must therefore be an essential specific function of the study guide.
The generative process of learning consists in the student constructing in his own mind a clear picture of the topics presented in the text. At a micro-level, the problem is one of comprehension: the student must build an accurate picture of the concept, principle, or theory described by the text author. A misrepresentations or an incomplete representation of what was meant results in faulty learning. The study guide can assist comprehension, when needed, by providing clarifications, visual graphics which synthesise topical areas or procedures and if appropriate, detailed worked-out problems.
At a macro-level, a generative process is involved in the student putting together the various topical elements of a subject into coherent cognitive structures (Kintsch and Vipond, 1979). Both memory and practical thinking are impaired by the absence of well developed cognitive structures. It is for this reason that the orienting function discussed previously can be of such importance in learning (Ausubel, 1968).
The rehearsal process of learning is involved in the memorization of factual elements such as formulae, lists of conditions, and so on. The study guide can assist rehearsal by providing the student with innemonics if appropriate or by providing him with opportunities for self-testing in the form of questions.
The three processes of selective attention, representation generation and rehearsal are, in my view, at the core of the learning process. It is these activities which the student engages in while he interacts with the textual materials being read. This conception of active processing needs to replace fully the still prevalent misconception that learning occurs naturally as a passive assimilation of content during reading. This issue is a complex one, however, as learning strategies interact with the type and difficulty of contents presented, such that at times passive reading is sufficient for learning. That this is the case in most situations is however incorrect. The study guide must therefore play a role in assisting and encouraging the student to engage in appropriate processing according to the type of material being studied.
4. Self-assessment
Self-assessment is a monitoring strategy aimed at helping the student evaluate his progress while studying and thus encourage him to compensate for learning deficiencies through further study. The strategy consists in self-testing and is usually based, in the case of study guides, on a set of questions and answers provided for this purpose.
These then are the four specific functions served by a well-designed study guide: orientation, task direction, learning assistance, and self-assessment. There is some overlap in the boundaries of these functions and the underlying processes are complex and not easily described because of the variety of situations to which they may be appropriately applied or not. They nevertheless serve as four conceptual points which can usefully be applied in an analysis of what might constitute an ideal study guide, to be undertaken next.
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