STUDENTS VIEWS ON THE EFFICIENCY OF INSTRUCTION - AN EXPLORATORY SURVEY OF THE INSTRUCTIONAL METACOGNITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF UNIVERSITY FRESHMEN

Students have conceptions about the relationship between instructional interventions and learning or, in other words, students have 'instruc tional metacognitive knowledge'. In this study, the efficiency of inst ructional interventions has been investigated as a specific object of students' instructional metacognitive knowledge. By means of a survey, conceptions about the efficiency of various instructional interventio ns of 488 freshmen in educational sciences and psychology have been in vestigated. Two research questions directed this exploratory study: (1 ) How do students assess the efficiency of instructional interventions ; and (2) Do differences in gender, educational background, and/or sub ject of study affect evaluations of the efficiency of instructional in terventions. Results show that respondents regard regular instructiona l interventions at the university directed toward, or supporting, surf ace-level processing and reproduction to be highly efficient. The use of technology is conceived as inefficient by these students. The limit ed number of differences between groups of students also suggests stud ents' conceptions to be both consistent and robust. The study illustra tes the need to investigate instructional metacognitive knowledge as d istinct from other forms of metacognitive knowledge, and raises questi ons about the major components and structure of instructional metacogn itive knowledge and individual differences in it. The findings suggest the need for the elaboration of a framework to describe instructional interventions.