3。 Design Test 16

4。 Question list of interview 16

1。 Introduction

    This chapter provides an introduction to learning strategies, and two of its branches --- time management and effort management。 Also the significance of this study is presented。

1。1 Learning Strategies 

Human history has proved that a good strategy pave the way to success。 Strategies are needed in every field of society for certain people to achieve their goals。 For learners, learning strategies are crucial to keep themselves up。 Good learning strategies, out of question, facilitate learning process efficiently and effectively。

Though in today’s education, strategies seem lay low in daily lectures, educators have never stopped their researches in the realm of learning strategies, the definition of which, for instance, has been discussed for decades。 Weinstein and Mayer (1986) define learning strategies as thoughts and behaviors that a learner engages in to facilitate his encoding process during learning。 The two specialists conclude from a rather macro-level prospective while others hold micro-level ones。 Tobias (1982) values the processes like note-taking, reviewing or comprehension monitoring and their function in decoding。 Oxford consider Learning Strategies as “operations employed by the learner to aid the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information。” (Oxford, 1990)

Accordingly, taxonomies that classify Learning Strategies vary wildly。 This paper adopts McKeachie’s taxonomy based on Weinstein and Mayer’s definition of learning strategies for its conciser framework and higher generality。 According to McKeachie (1986), there are three main branches in Learning Strategies: Cognitive Strategies, Metacognitive Strategies and Resource Strategies。 The three main branches are developed into the following ten items as 

1。 Cognitive Strategies: Rehearsal Strategies, Elaboration Strategies and Organizational Strategies。

2。 Metacognitive Strategies: Planning Strategies, Monitoring Strategies and Regulating Strategies。

3。 Resource Strategies: Time Management, Effort Management, Study Environment Management and Support of Others。

The following part of the paper will focus more on time management and effort management in McKeachie’s taxonomy。

1。2 Time Management

An important self-management category in McKeachie’s theory of Resource Strategies, time management appears into people’s sight for quite a long time。 

As far back as 1973, Lakein wrote a book titled “How to get control of your time and your life”。 It is written in the book that time management is of great significance and scientificity for everyone。 Also the writer presents some suggestions related to self-control and decision-making。 Later Thomas and Rohwer (1986) note that time management is an important self-management activity in studying。 The way students manage their time is significant in learning processing and it is necessary for students to manage their time effectively。 (R。 García-Ros, F。 Pérez-González and E。 Hinojosa, 2004)

Even though the concept of time management in learning strategies was proposed in the early years of educational psychology, little empirical research, however, had examined the management (Macan, 1994) partly due to its high acceptability。 Only since 1990s did some empirical researches go on to look deeper into the field。 

To evaluate learners’ capacity of time management, instruments have been developed。 A scale of time management --- Time Management Behavior Scale was proposed, along with a proposed process model based on a statistically descriptive and inferential analysis in a large scale questionnaire survey by Macan (1990)。 The scale evaluates four kernel factors in time management: (1) Setting goals and priorities, (2) Mechanics, planning, scheduling, (3) Perceived control of time and (4) Preference for disorganization。 Obviously the scale is a unidimensional evaluation of learners’ capacity of time management。 It is more like a stage analysis, in a particular arrangement of time and unavoidably, it is criticized whereas multidimensional sub-scales would be more sound and reasonable in capacity evaluation。From优Y尔E论W文W网wWw.YouERw.com 加QQ75201,8766