The effects of various learning strategies on students' academic achievement and endurance of their learning in freshman highschool history class

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of learning strategies on freshman high school students? academic achievement and retention of their learning. The learning strategies were of three types: elaboration, organization, and repetition. The study was conducted in Kırsehir in the academic year of 2002-2003. A total of 92 students participated in the study. Experimental research design was utilized in gathering and analyzing the data. Three similar classes were selected based on students? academic achievement, gender, and school attendance. The classes were randomly assigned to three groups. Two classes were the experimental groups (group A and B), and one class became the control group (group C). The students in group A used elaborative strategy; the students in group B used organizing strategy; and the control group C used traditional repetitive learning strategy. All three groups took an 6-week (12 hours) history course. The course was about Turk?s World-II (13th-19th centuries). A pre- and post-test on academic achievement were administered to the students before and after the course. The test questions were of two levels: knowledge and comprehension. In addition, students took another test on retention of their learning. In analyzing data, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was utilized in order to compare the mean scores of three groups. Because the results of the analysis indicated that the mean scores were significantly different from each other, a more advanced statistical analysis technique, Tukey was also used. The results indicated that (1) the students using elaborative learning strategy displayed better academic performance in solving questions at knowledge level than the students using either organization or repetition learning strategy, (2) the students using elaborative learning strategy displayed better academic performance in solving questions at comprehension level than the other groups of students. In addition, students using organization strategy demonstrated better performance than the students using repetition learning strategy, (3) regarding academic achievement at knowledge and comprehension level questions, the students using elaboration learning strategy displayed better achievement than other groups. However, there was no significant difference between group B and C, (4) concerning the retention of learning, the students using elaboration learning strategy displayed the best performance. In addition, the students using organization learning strategy also demonstrated better performance than those using repetition learning strategy.