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80 CHAPTER 3factor in your perceptions regarding the desire or need to change
academic behavior.
The last point I would like to identify regarding the issue of not
wanting to change is the ability of students’ to observe, monitor, and
direct their own learning. The key here is the ability during study to
predict how well they will do on exams. Research has indicated that
the ability to judge or estimate how well you know the material is an
important indicator of future success on exams (Tobias & Everson,
2000). This finding makes sense, because the ability to estimate one’s
understanding of academic content helps in making decisions about
the effectiveness of one’s present learning strategies, as well as the need
to change. Developing this skill is an important part of becoming a
more successful learner.I Don’t Know What to Change
Often students come to class believing that they can and want to
change their academic behavior but are not sure what they have to do
to change. The purpose of the self-observation assessments at the begin-
ning of each chapter is to provide information about your behavior.
Your instructor may ask you to take different study skill assess-
ments to help you identify the areas that need change. Knowing what
to change requires an understanding of your learning and study strate-
gies. The more you understand your strengths and weaknesses, the
better you will be able to develop a plan for changing your behavior.
One of the instruments I use is the Learning and Study Skills Inven-
tory (LASSI; Weinstein, Schulte, & Palmer, 1987). This instrument
helps students compare their skills with other college students in such
areas as: attitude and interest, motivation, time management, anxiety,
concentration, information processing, selecting main ideas, self-test-
ing, and preparing for and taking tests. Which of these areas do you
think are your strengths and weaknesses?I Don’t Know How to Change
Even though this course teaches learning strategies to bring about
change in your academic behavior, you may not know how to change.
There are many possible reasons for this problem. First, you may
experience difficulty in transferring your newly learned strategies to
other courses you are taking because you are not practicing these
strategies in other courses. If you learn strategies but don’t practice
them in other courses, it is unlikely that you will become a more suc-
cessful learner. Once you practice the learning strategies in different
contexts, you can then make changes in how you apply the strategies
in different courses and become a more successful learner.