Study and Research

Methods
Dr. Charles Hategekimana
1
Introduction
• Success (a wish of every student)
• Failure (sometimes an unwanted reality): less than 10/20
• Failure in course implies repetition (time and financial implication)
• Failure in average (general and major): less than 12/20
• Consecutive probations: dissmissal
• Calculation of the average: use the formula of mean
• What factors behind all these?
• What can be done to prevent such unwanted situations?
• Study and research… our intention
Example of Transcript
Course Number of credits Grades
Micro computer 3 10 30
applications
Applied Maths 3 7 21
Intro to Bible 2 14 28
Study and research 2 17 34
methods
Etc… … … …
Total 10 113
What is learning?
• Behaviourism…

• Cognitive Constructivism and Radical Constructivism…

• Socio Constructionism…
Behaviorism to understand learning
• Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by
experience (Feldman, 2011).
• According to Ivan Pavlov (1927), Classical conditioning is a type of learning in
which a neutral stimulus comes to bring about a response after it is paired with a
stimulus that naturally brings about that response.
• According to Burrhus Frederic Skinner, Operant conditioning is learning in which
a voluntary response is straightened or weakened, depending on its favourable or
unfavourable consequences (Skinner, 1957).
• Reinforcement (primary reinforcer vs secondary reinforcer)
• Positive punishment vs negative punshment
Cognitive Constructivism and Radical Constructivism

• According to Jean Piaget (1964), learning is the acquisition of specialized abilities

for thinking about a variety of things.
• Learning is the acquisition of knowledge through the process of building accurate
internal models or representations that reflect external structures that exist in the
real world.
• Schema
• Accomodation
• Assimilation
• Equilibration
• Stages of cognitive development: sensori motor, preoperational, concrete
operations, formal operations
Socio Constructionism

• Learning is the acquisition of knowledge through social interaction

and language usage, thus is a shared experience and not individual
experience, and happens in socio-cultural context in specific time and
place (Vygotsky, 1978).
• Learning practices like tutoring, study groups are rooted in this theory
of leaning.
Factors influencing learning
• Physiological Factors

• Psychological Factors
Physiological factors
• All night cramming sessions, skipped meals, and skipped physical exercise can
actually reduce the brain capacity for high performance for student and worker.
• Lim (2018) need adequate sleep, balanced diet that includes protein, fat, complex
carbohydrates, and fiber improve learning and academic performance.
• Students should reduce fast food like soft drinks and processed food to increase
their academic performance (Burrows, Burrows, Blanco, Reyes, & Gahagan,
2016).
• Regular physical exercises for effective learning and improve the academic
performance.
Psychological factors of learning and performance,
Also called personal characteristics
• Individuality • Memory
• Self-confidence • Imagination
• Desire • Humility
• Will • Emotional engagement
• Motivation • Listening
• Conscience • Effective study skills
• Perception • Active and passive learning
• Thought • POWER learning
• Communication
Individuality
• One’s growth will be along lines as distinctly unique as his/her own individuality
• Physical self…
• Social self…
• Personal self…
• The self-concept is connected with the self-fulfilling prophecy
• This is a phenomenon that occurs when individuals hold a belief or expectation that
affects their behaviours, thereby increasing the likelihood that those beliefs or
expectations will come true.
• To get a clear understanding of one’s self concept each individual needs to examine
the roles he/she plays; identify his/her strength and weaknesses; construct his/her
own definition of who he/she is and accept his/her entire self-concept.
Self confidence
• Self–confidence is the assurance in personal judgement, ability and
power.
• Strenghts, assets, opportunities, weaknesses, threats (SWOT)
• In fact, once you have known your weaknesses, you can direct
particular aids to growth toward making weaknesses to strengths.
• Say, “My accounting tests this year are an improvement over what I did last year.”
Desire
• A student’s desire is to improve his/her grades and succeed in school.
• Each student should desire the right:
to grow and live a significant life;
to train his/her intellect,
to develop his/her character
to acquire the ability to solve the new problems which shall confront
him/her by applying the accumulated wisdom provided by education.
Will
• Willingness is the quality or state of being prepared to do something;
readiness
• Feeling, thinking and willing are often designated as the three basic
functions of the mind. Something is felt to be worthwhile, good to do
or have; it is thought about, evaluated, measured mentally for
advantage or importance; but unless the mind wills to accomplish it
there remains only a dream or an intention unfulfilled.
• Will, Work and Wait … WWW
Motivation
• Primary motivation: this situation in which an individual is forced to
act because he loves the activity itself.

• Secondary motivation: a situation in which an individual is forced to

act to achieve this activity in order to get something that has an
arbitrary relationship with it (the activity)
• Are you studying for good jobs and money or because you love you
have for this subject?
Conscience
• The moral sense of right and wrong
• A constant and hardworking companion, which helps you through the tangled web of conflicting desires,
inclinations, and advice from many sources, to a set of standards, grown from your own personal convictions.
• Lawrence Kohlberg developed the moral development theory
• people go through a three levels sequence of moral reasoning in a fixed order including:
• Level 1. Pre-conventional morality where the concrete interests of the individual are considered in terms of
rewards and punishments (Feldman, 2011).
• Level 2. Conventional morality where people approach moral problems as members of the society. They are
interested in pleasing others by acting as good members of the society (Feldman, 2011).
• Level 3. Post-conventional morality where people use moral principles which are seen as broader than those
of any particular society to live up to your own conscience and standards of honesty ((Feldman, 2011;

Kohlbertge & Ryncarz, 1990).

Perception
• the organization, identification and interpretation of sensory
information in order to represent, understand and react on a
given stimulus.
• A gift serving mind and senses
• The ability that makes meaningful experiences possible
• Beyond mere awareness of one’s surroundings.
• Therefore, as much as perception is a gift that acquaints you
with the world around you, be sure you are seeing when you
look.
Thought
• Thinking is the manipulation of mental representation of information.
• Thinking underlies creativity, reasoning and decision making.
• The ability to generate unusual and appropriate response to a problem or a question using
a divergent thinking or have the ability to produce response that are based primarily on
knowledge and logic (common sense) using a convergent thinking (Feldman, 2011).
• Human vs animal
• Ability to chose from many perceptions
• “Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society –nay, even
set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without
creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of
society is unthinkable as development of the individual personality without the
nourishing soil of the community (Einstein, 1935, p.9).”
Thought: inductive vs Deductive
reasoning
Inductive Reasoning
Definition:
Deductive Reasoning
Definition:
The process of reasoning that a general principle is true The process of demonstrating that if certain statements are
because the special cases you’ve seen are true. accepted as true, then other statements can be shown to
Characteristics: follow from them.
 It is NOT logically valid. Characteristics:
 You begin with something specific and make a general  It is a logically valid explanation.
statement.  Most often used by scientists
 It uses a series of observations to come to a  It begins with a general statement and concludes
conclusion. something specific.
 Inferences are often used when reasoning this way.
Examples:
Examples:

How to build a theory using inductive reasoning?- How to verify a theory using deductive reasoning?-
qualitative approach quantitative approach
Communication
• Sender to receiver and feedback
• Consider barriers too
• The community come from the same root word, and without the
ability to communicate the community would not be possible.
• Through the gift of communication the person will receive his/her
education, and the extent to which he/she develops the ability to
communicate with others will help determine success or failure of
his/her life.
Memory
• The memory is the faculty of the mind by which the information
is encoded (recorded), stored (retained for the memory
consolidation) and decoded (retrieved by recalling the
information).
• Learning will make no sense if it is not retained by the person.
• Memory establishes links across diverse experiences.
• It is needed in developing social relationships, mastering
cognitive competencies (mental capacities) and solving various
problems.
Memory vs Tape recorder
• Memory appears like a tape recorder which records a song or music
and plays whenever we demand.
• Our memory system does perform this but it is more dynamic and
versatile than a tape recorder.
• But human memory differs from a tape recorder in many important
ways. For instance, we remember not only verbal material but visual
experiences, tactile impressions, feelings of pain and joy, motor skills,
events, activities and so on.
• Second, retrieval of information can be exactly in the same way or in a
different form.
Memory vs Tape recorder
• Third, the reception of new information depends a lot on what
information we already have. Fourth, we neither receive nor retain all
the information presented to us because there is great deal of
selectivity in receiving the information. Fifth, all tape recorders have
some limitation on recording but human memory can retain extremely
large amounts of information.
• Finally, our memory system is an active system. It works on the
information received. It may integrate, add, modify, omit or reorganize
the information. It is not passive like a tape recorder which reproduces
the information in its original form.
Factors affecting memory
• Conditions of learning, for example all the other factions like
motivation, organization of the material, etc
• Emotional factors, for example repression
• Other factors?
 Imagination
• The power of reproducing images stored in the memory under the suggestion
of associated images (reproductive imagination) or the power of recombining
former experiences in the creation of the new images directed at a specific
goal or aiding in the solution of the problems (creative imagination)
• We distinguish reproductive imagination also known as imaginative
memory which reproduces images already seen from creative imagination
which uses images already acquired, it modifies, combines, and creates new
ones.
• The importance of imagination in learning situation is to stimulate critical
thinking skills, problem solving skills, creativity and innovation skills in
learning situation.
Humility
• Humility will make the most single significant contribution to
a student’s education and growth, for it is the gift that makes
him/her teachable
• It is good to know that the people who learn and grow are
those who are ready to listen, who are not afraid to ask
questions, who are alert to new ways of doing things, and
who accept suggestions for improvement with enthusiasm.
• Use the gift of humility to make you teachable
Emotional engagement
• Is comprised of positive affective attitudes and interest of students in learning and
assessment.
• This means that negative thoughts include depression, anger, fear, shame, jealousy,
cognitive distortion characterized by attitude and behaviour of magnification of things
that are not important, minimization of significant things, and emotional reasoning
characterized with underestimation and overgeneralization of one’s ability.
• The cognitive flexibility taken as learning on his or her mistakes and make a self-
assessment or reappraisal is part of positive emotion.
• It is clear also that being honest, true, just, virtue, forgiveness, mind control, and a
sound mind in the other hand (Hoy, Miskel, & Tarter, 2013).
Listening
• Listening is to give one’s attention to secure cognitive, affective and behavioural processes.
• The following are active listening steps to improve concentration:
1. Maintain eye contact. This shows how reliable warm, sociable, honest, confident and active the
receiver is.
2. Don’t interrupt. When the speaker is talking, please let the message be conveyed to the audience.
This is the sign of the mutual respect for effective communication. In the listening process,
attention is an important factor which determines material to select and learn.
3. Ask question for clarification. Questions may be open-ended, close-ended multiple questions,
reflective questions,...
4. Repeat back what the speaker is saying in your own words. Listen for total meaning of the message
including contents and underlying attitude and feeling.
Global learning, partial learning and progressive partial learning

• Effective learning strategies includes using cognitive organizers, self-regulation

including initiative, persistence, motivation and goal setting.
• In general, the learning process spread out with periods of rest seems to improve the
outcome of learning while the learning which is concentrated does not result in good
performance
• Learning the whole material in a single unity (global method)
• Learning some part of the material each time (partial method). According to the
partial method, the material can be divided into several parts by the student who will
then try to put them together after studying each part separately.
• The student can also use a cumulative learning method whereby he studies the first
unit, then the second with the first, the third with the two first and so on. This
method is known as the progressive partial method.
Active learning, passive learning and overlearning

• A student who plays an active role in the learning process

generally gets better results than a passive student.
• This is illustrated in teaching when the student recites what
he has learned. Indeed, actively discuss a new material of
learning is more likely to favor the acquisition of this
material than just reading it passively.
• Suggestions for getting involved in one’s study
 P.O.W.E.R. Learning
Prepare stands for setting goals
Organize stands for the physical and mental organization.
Work is related to the individual’s motivation and the efforts made in order to get success.
Evaluate is an assessment of the match between a product or activity and the goals it was
intended to meet.
Rethink involves critical thinking which is a process involving reanalysing, questioning,
and challenging our underlying assumptions.
Some of its steps include the following: Reviewing how you have accomplished the task;
questioning the outcome; identifying your underlying assumptions and challenging them;
consider alternatives rejected earlier; consider what you would do if you had the
opportunity to try things again and reconsider your initial goals(Feldman, 2009).
 Environmental factors
Social Environmental factors
• Academic environment
• The classroom climate and teacher interaction with
students
• Management support and relationships
• Family and community involvement
• Peer Support
• Physical environment
Academic Environment
• Academic environment is composed of available services, systems and policies in
Higher Learning Institution. According to Hoy, Miskel, & Tarter (2013), academic
environment is characterized with a culture of academic optimism. This is
composed with cognitive (collective efficacy), affective (faculty trust in parents or
sponsors, teachers) and behavioral (academic emphasis-efficacy and trust)
components.
• As a result, an academic emphasis which is the extent to which an Institution of
Higher Education holds high expectation for its faculty staff, non teaching staff
and students in one hand and the way the community supports those expectations
in the other hand.
• The class should respect diversity in all its forms including culture for
international students, gender responsive, disability accommodation without
discrimination of any kind.
The classroom climate and teacher interaction with students

• At first, we must know that the school should be a family whose father is the
teacher and children are students. Students must feel loved and love one another
as members of the family.
• This family atmosphere, to a large extent, results from the behaviour of the
teacher vis-à-vis his students. When students meet a dedicated teacher, a
welcoming kindness, they are quickly attracted; they readily accept advice and
reprimands. It is in this atmosphere that the student adapts easily and even with
joy in school life.
Then students should develop cooperation by:

- Creating an importance to the group.

- Developing a mutual love and respect among themselves and with the
teacher.
- Adapting to an established system of responsibilities
- Establishing their own goals and objectives with the teacher and
classmates, etc
• Apart from academic support from instructors where a learner get
guidance, peace of advices there
Management support and relationships
• Leadership influence from the top management of the higher
education in shaping and clarifying the curriculum, mission
statement and vision statement of the organization can affect
learning and academic success.
Family and community involvement
• Parents, sponsors and community aspiration and expectation
to students to enhance financial and moral support to
students. This means that parents , sponsors, community at
large with a positive attitude contribute positively to effective
leaning and academic success in higher education
 Peer support
 Peer influence has important role in improvement of academic achievement of student through
mutual support, knowledge sharing and skills improvement and in mastry of learning. Peers are
well placed to collaborate with their colleages in academic life (Hoy et al, 2013).

This may happen when students:

 Compare or share notes with others after class in small groups.
 Compare their highlighting and margin notes in groups.
 Use library facilities by making
 documentation in groups.
 Observe the model from the instructor and identify the source of error.
 Review the previous tests results in groups
 Work hand in hand when a group assignment is given to us to work in groups.
 Live in dormitories of the institution where I benefits intellectual gains of continuing learning with
my classmates
Physical environment influencing learning and academic performance

• A student needs a suitable chair and a table or a desk where his

spinal code is vertical. Supplies such as a pen, a pencil, a computer,
calculator, a bag and a planner are needed for effective leaning and
achieve academic success.
• Light, fresh air and ventilation, climate and global health.