Online study-aids to stimulate effective learning in an undergraduate psychological assessment course

Abstract

Many students use ineffective learning strategies. They tend to start too late and learn in a superficial way, without integrating different parts of the study materials. To help students in Psychological Assessment in Youth overcome these problems, we designed online study-aids to spread their learning over the semester (distributed practice) and provide them with self-test questions (practice testing). Study-aids covered the last week’s course readings and consisted of 10 to 15 questions presented in several stimulating closed formats (e.g., connecting one theory with another, or filling out norm scores in a bell curve). Participation was voluntary and promoted using an incentive system. The study-aids were evaluated in two cohorts of students (2018: N = 94; 2019: N = 84). Participation was good: 79% of the students completed the study-aids (range 69–85%). Satisfaction was high: most students indicated that the study-aids supported their studies well (89%). Exam performance improved significantly upon introduction of the study-aids (comparison cohort 2017: N = 69), although more so for the midterm exam (r = 0.47) than for the final exam (r = 0.17). These findings suggest that online study-aids can stimulate effective learning by helping students distribute and self-test their learning.