Can a Brief, Digital Skill Training Intervention Help Undergraduates "Learn to Learn" and Improve Their STEM Achievement?

Students who drop out of their science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors commonly report that they lack skills critical to STEM learning and career pursuits. Many training programs exist to develop students' learning skills and they typically achieve small to medium effects on behaviors and performance. However, these programs require large investments of students' and instructors' time and effort, which limits their applicability to large lecture course formats commonly employed in early undergraduate STEM coursework. This study examined whether brief, digital training modules designed to help students apply learning strategies and self-regulated learning principles effectively in their STEM courses can impact students' behaviors and performance in a large biology lecture course. Results indicate that a 2-hr Science of Learning to Learn training had significant effects on students' use of resources for planning, monitoring, and strategy use, and improved scores on quizzes and exams. These findings indicate that a brief, self-guided, online training can increase desirable learning behaviors and improve STEM performance with minimal cost to learners or instructors. Implications for future design of interventions and their provision to students in need of support are discussed. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Researchers examined whether providing undergraduate students with training designed to improve their study skills could (a) change the way students used digital resources for learning and (b) improve their achievement in a challenging course for students who pursue science careers. Students encountered the training on their science course's website. Most completed it within 1 to 2 hr at a time of their choosing. Students who completed the training used more of the resources designed to support effective studying, and also performed better on their quizzes and unit exam compared with students who completed another science activity. This training is promising because it is low in cost, reasonably brief, and easily scalable to new courses and populations of students who may benefit from improving their approach to learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]