Work in progress – Role of learning strategies in Electrical Circuits and Analog Electronics courses

Jhon J. Ramírez-Echeverry, Andrés Olarte Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department

Universidad Nacional de Colombia Bogotá, Colombia

{jjramireze, faolarted}@unal.edu.co

Agueda García-Carrillo Departament de Projectes d'Enginyeria

Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech Barcelona, España

agueda.garcia@upc.edu

Abstract— This work-in-progress describes a study intended to determine whether self-regulated learning strategies influence the academic performance of students from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. This research was conducted with 396 students in two terms, who were surveyed about their use of learning strategies using the CEAM II psychometric tool. Later, it was analyzed whether a significant correlation exists between the scores obtained from the questionnaire and the grades reached in two courses of the engineering curriculum. It was found that some strategies are related to the academic achievement for both courses, whereas other ones influence only one of them. From these results, professors are preparing methods and activities oriented to foster the use of these strategies in order to improve the student academic performance in Electrical Circuits and Analog Electronics courses.

Keywords—electrical engineering education; self-study courses; self-regulated learning strategies; student achievement; educational activities.

I. INTRODUCTION The academic performance depends on personal aspects of

the students and external variables [1]. The personal factors are related to motivation, cognition and metacognition. Motivation is a condition for studying and learning, since students expectations of achieving a learning goal may activate their cognitive abilities [2], [3]. Also, affective variables may influence the academic achievement. Cognitive variables refer to student's mental aptitudes for learning, such as analytic capabilities, comprehension, cognitive style, learning style, learning strategies, among others [1], [2]. Metacognition is the level of consciousness that a student has about her own learning processes. It refers to the student awareness about how she learns or how she controls her cognitive capacity [4].

On the other hand, the external variables that impact the academic performance are conditions that depend on the student context namely: environmental, institutional and instructional. Environmental aspects comprise economic, social and educational levels of people around the student, institutional concerns about features of educational institutions such as: educators’ skills or academic environment, and

instructional characteristics involve contents and teaching methods [2]. It is widely recognized that external variables and personal factors influence the learning process and the academic performance [2], [3], [5], [6].

The study described in this paper is focused on learning strategies, since these ones are variables that students may control (self-regulated) and may be modified using an appropiate class environment. On the contrary, other factors like cognitive style or external variables may not be easily changed. This work in the DIEE has the final objective of improving the student autonomy in her learning process.

This work-in-progress presents a study of the relations found between self-regulated learning strategies (SLS) and the academic performance of students enrolled in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering (DIEE) at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, particularly in electrical circuits and analog electronics courses. In the future, results obtained in this study will be used to propose an instructional intervention intended to train students in the SLS identified as important for improving academic performance.

II. LEARNING STRATREGIES AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Autonomy in learning refers to the student capacity for leading her educational process [7], to become responsible for her learning. In order to get autonomy, the student requires learning techniques or strategies [1], [8] defined as behaviors, attitudes, beliefs or emotions that facilitate the development of the learning tasks [9]. It is recognized that, these strategies allow the student to increase her academic performance [1], [8], [10], [11]. Strategies such as: planning study time, study environment, help seeking and peer learning, effort regulation, idea elaboration and organization, metacognitive self-regulation and adaptation of the study method have been recognized as fundamental for reaching autonomy in learning and getting good grades [6], [8], [10].

Inside the context of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, several studies have been carried out to forecast, in statistical sense, the relation between academic performance and learning strategies [12] – [17]. Authors have concluded that students that work with their peers (other students and

This research was made possible by a grant from Fundación Carolina (Spain)

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instructors), evaluate their learning process, criticize topics and concepts, among others, reach higher graduation rates. However, those studies show that relations between learning strategies and academic achievement are complex and highly depending on the context [19], [20].

III. METHODS

A. Study purpose This study explores whether academic performance of

students of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Univesidad Nacional de Colombia is influenced by the use of self-regulated learning strategies. The academic achievement was defined as the summative assessment that each student obtained in the activities of Electrical Circuits and Analog Electronics courses. Activities consisted of three theoretical exams, three sessions of exercises out of class and four laboratory practices. The course grades are from 0.0 until 5.0 (3.0 is the minimum approving grade) and they were supplied by the professor of each course.

Researchers decided to study academic performance in Electrical Circuits and Analog Electronics courses, because these courses contain important topics for the education of any Electrical or Electronic engineer [21]. In addition, these courses have presented low approval rates in the DIEE at Universidad Nacional de Colombia [22]. Both courses deal with subjects related to analysis and design of analog electrical circuits [23]. Electrical Circuits course is in the second year and Analog Electronics course is in the third year of the syllabus of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

B. Research population The sample consisted of 236 engineering students from

seven groups of Electrical Circuits course and 160 engineering students from five groups of Analog Electronics course. These students were enrolled in the courses during the second semester of 2012 and the first semester of 2013. Altogether, eleven professors coordinated the involved groups of this study. The entire population attending both courses was 845 students of the Engineering Faculty; therefore the sampling error was 3.66% with confidence level of 95%.

C. Data collection procedure and instrumentation Self-regulated learning strategies were measured by

students with Cuestionario de Estrategias de Aprendizaje y Motivación (CEAM II) of Roces et al [24], [25]. CEAM II is based on MSLQ of Pintrich [26] and it measures cognitive learning strategies, metacognitive learning strategies and the self-regulation of those resources that students may use in a college course. Measured learning strategies were: planning study time (the student sets schedules to study and schedules to perform learning tasks), study environment (the student avoids visual and hearing distractions through controlling the study environment), help seeking and peer learning (when the student does not understand, she seeks help in other students or the instructor; she also works with another students in the proposed tasks or discuss with them the course topics), effort regulation (the student perseveres, works hard and controls her attention to achieve learning objectives), idea elaboration and critical

thinking (the student makes connections between what she knows and the new concepts; additionally she uses strategies to obtain additional knowledge about a learning topic), idea organization (the student uses tools to select relevant information), metacognitive self-regulation (the student plans, monitors and regulates her learning processes) and adaptation of the study method (the student employs and changes her study methods to meet the requirements of the subject or professor's style).

CEAM II was applied in two formats: a paper and pen version that was filled out by the student in class time or an online version which was completed in time out of class. In both cases, the questionnaire was filled out in approximately 20 minutes. This tool was applied at the mid-semester and the domain of it was established asking to the students about learning strategies that they use when studying topics of Electrical Circuits and Analog Electronics courses, according to the course that they were enrolled. Using a self-report questionnaire allowed knowing information from the student's perspective and not only from the professors' perspective. The participation in this research was voluntary and students were informed that their responses were confidential.

IV. RESULTS

A. Descriptive statistics Descriptive statistics for the analyzed variables showed that

few students are at the minimum level of each strategy, the worst case was collaboration among peers to learn, with 4.3% of the population reporting never use it. However, few students achieve the maximum level of each strategy. The best result was study environment strategy with 6.3% of the population that reports to control study environment and to avoid distractions in the higher degree when they study. These distributions indicate that students enrolled in the courses analyzed of the DIEE are in intermediate stages to develop autonomy in learning.

Planning study time and organization of information are the strategies less employed by the students, with 49% and 43.7% of the population with low values in the use of these strategies. Positively it was found that 61.4% of students efficiently use the study time, 65.6% of students work hard to achieve the activities objectives, 63.4% of students develops ideas and critically analyze the subjects of study and 66.8% of students self-regulate their attention when reading and focus their efforts to study the topics that are expected to learn (metacognitive self-regulation).

The above results allow students of the DIEE and professors to identify the learning strategies that they need to foster.

B. Correlations Among all Variables of Interest The Spearman bivariate correlations were analyzed to

determine whether the students' academic performance is influenced by the use of self-regulated learning strategies. Spearman correlation was utilized because data of academic performance and scores for each learning strategy are not normally distributed [27]. Table I shows the calculated correlations.

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TABLE I. CORRELATIONS AMONG ALL VARIABLES OF INTERES

Activities of the course Electrical Circuits Course Analog Electronics Course

SLS SLS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Theoretical exams 0.22** 0,22** 0.20* 0.38** 0,22** 0,22** 0.25** 0.24* 0,22** 0,22** 0,22** 0,22** Exercises out of class 0,22** 0,22** 0.20* 0.28** 0,22** 0,22** 0.22* 0,22** 0,22** 0,22** 0.43* 0,22** Laboratory practices 0,22** 0,22** 0,22** 0,22** 0,22** 0,22** 0,22** 0.31** 0,22** 0.20* 0,22**

Course grade 0.21** 0,22** 0,22** 0.37** 0.16* 0,22** 0,22** 0.23** 0,22** 0,22** 0.20* 0,22** 0,22** (1) planning study time, (2) study environment, (3) help seeking and peer learning, (4) effort regulation, (5) elaboration of ideas, (6) organization of ideas, (7) metacognitive self-regulation, (8) adaptation of the study

method. Values have a probability * (p < 0.05) or ** (p < 0.01).

All correlations are positive, linear and significant (significance level α = 0.05). In the Electrical Circuits course, theorical exams are the activities that requiere more use of SLS. The average grade of theorical exams is correlated (p < 0.01) with scores for planning study time (0.22), help seeking and peer learning (0.20), effort regulation (0.38) and adaptation of study method (0.25). In Analog Electronics course, laboratory practices have a higher number of correlations with SLS than other activities. The performance of these practices has a correlation (p < 0.05) with effort regulation (0.31) and metacognitive self-regulation (0.20). Notice that, the effort regulation strategy is correlated with the academic performance in all activities and with the course grade in both courses. By contrast, the strategy of study environment control does not correlate with student achievement in the analyzed courses.

V. DISCUSSION For the Electrical Circuits course the correlations found

between learning strategies and the grades obtaineed in theoretical exams and exercises indicate that students get better performance when collaborate between peer to learn, regulate their effort to learning, program study time, adapt their study methods and elaborate ideas about course subjects. Therefore, students need to increase the use of the above learning strategies before enrolling in Electrical Circuits course. Another option is that professors and students utilize teaching-learning methods that encourage the use of these strategies within Electrical Circuits course. For Analog Electronic course, the results indicate that learning strategies required in this course are planning study time, effort regulation, organization of information and metacognition. Table II illustrates the amount of correlations between the SLS and the activities of the both courses simultaneously. In this table it is showed that academic performance in Electrical Circuits course generates a higher number of correlations with SLS than academic performance in Analog Electronics course.

Analyzing the results presented in Table II, it can be also

observed that there are common strategies that influence the academic performance in both courses: planning study time and effort regulation. Additionally, there are strategies that influence the performance of only one course.

TABLE II. CORRELATIONS AMONG ACTIVITIES AND SLS

Activities of the course Correlations

SLS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Theoretical exams

Exercises out of class

Laboratory practices

Course grade

(1) planning study time, (2) study environment, (3) help seeking and peer learning, (4) effort regulation, (5) elaboration of ideas, (6) organization of ideas, (7) metacognitive self-regulation, (8) adaptation of the study method. Correlation in Electrical Circuits course. Correlation in Analog Electronics course.

In Analog Electronics are organization of information and metacognition. These similarities and differences indicate that inside the context of DIEE at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, there could be transversal strategies required in several courses and other strategies of exclusive nature required in particular ones.

Finally, it can be recognized that contextual conditions of this study were broad. The results were obtained from a population of two terms, with a representative sampling and academic performance data obtained from different evaluation methods (11 evaluators). Therefore, results of this study provide a starting point for deciding which learning strategies should be fostered by DIEE students before enrolling to Electrical Circuits and Analog Electronics courses.

VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS The study presented in this article showed that academic

performance of students of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Universidad Nacional de Colombia is related to the use of self-regulated learning strategies. It also defined which strategies should be promoted for each course. Consequently, professors of DIEE are preparing an instructional intervention in order to persuade students to assume the autonomous learning process outside the classroom. Methods and activities developed for this intervention must consider the correlations found in this study. Additionally, faculty will instruct students about the use of learning strategies in order to improve their autonomy in learning.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank professors and students, of

Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, for their cooperation in this research.

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