Fostering Strategic Learning in Community College: A Multi-Institution Study of Learning-to-Learn Syllabi

Used in higher education to support student success, learning-to-learn courses are for-credit courses designed to help students become more active and proactive learners. To guide student development, learning-to-learn courses teach students about various concepts and strategies rooted in learning theory and research and applications to foster learning and success in college. The syllabi of learning-to-learn courses are important to the study of active learning because they describe curricular mechanisms designed to instigate active and strategic learning. Also of interest is measuring curricular aspects of syllabi in intervention research. However, there is a paucity of research that systematically examines curricula of learning-to-learn courses. The current study used content analysis to examine 3-credit learning-to-learn syllabi across 40 community colleges, focusing on course topics, student learning outcomes, course descriptions, and standardized assessments. Qualitative data were quantified and aggregated to provide summary statistics regarding the presence/absence and extent to which syllabi addressed each content category in our coding frame, which included a priori categories related to strategic learning and emergent categories. Findings suggested that the learning-to-learn syllabi commonly addressed cognitive, motivational, and self-regulatory aspects of learning posited in theory to promote strategic learning. However, the emphasis given to strategic learning content varied across syllabi. Syllabi also varied in their mentioning of theories and standardized assessments used to promote strategic learning. The coding frame used in this study had strong interrater reliability and was effective at measuring variation in strategic learning elements within learning-to-learn syllabi. It also helped describe contextual factors and other college success topics. The current study provides support for the continued study and use of this coding frame, and the quantitative variables produced from it, in future research. Future research should examine how emphasizing strategic learning topics, theory, and assessments in learning-to-learn courses may influence learning-to-learn intervention effects on academic outcomes.