Learning from the Learners: Successful College Students Share Their Effective Learning Habits

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This book turns the traditional approach to student success on its head by examining the learning habits of successful students based on what they have told us about their learning strategies, on what they do to succeed in college, and on the teaching practices they think best foster their learning. This approach is in stark contrast to most recent studies of learning at the college level which focus on what students need to do to succeed, but are written from the point of view of "experts" who provide advice to struggling students. Learning from the Learners: Successful College Students Share Their Effective Learning Habits is based on what "expert" students tell us about what they - as learners - do to succeed. It is grounded in a 10-year study that rests on a rich qualitative data set that includes open-ended survey responses gathered on a term-by term basis and in depth interviews during the freshman and junior years with over 700 students of diverse backgrounds. Additionally, since many students interviewed were the first in their family to attend college and from backgrounds traditionally underserved by higher education, the book's insights will be of particular interest to educators elsewhere who are increasingly expected to help similar students succeed. Themes include student success, academic challenges, diversity, pedagogy, and technology in the classroom. No other book on the widely discussed subject of student success relies on such a wealth of quantitative and qualitative data about what works from the point of view of students themselves.

Reviews

The Learning Habits Project is an impressive ten-year study that addresses one of the key questions of higher educationhow can students be successful and graduate from college It has several advantages over other studies or projects addressing this issue: it comes from a strength-based rather than deficit perspective; it centers research on students voices and perspective; it engages the quality of learning, not just college completion; and it looks at student experience holisticallywhat happens in the classroom, outside the classroom, and in student lives outside campus. While providing important insight about specific issues, such as how students can best use technology or advice to improve their reading comprehension, it sheds light on important overarching issues, such as the importance of students metacognitive strategies in student success. This balance of big-picture issues as well as detailed advice around specific challenges and programs provides the type of systemic and multilevel recommendations needed to truly help students succeed. -- Adrianna Kezar, professor and codirector, Pullias Center for Higher Education and director of the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success, University of Southern California
Learning from the Learners gives fresh perspective on what works for traditionally underserved students, with specific guidance on an array of habits of learning, including reading, writing, and study skills. The book presents well-documented and myth-breaking findings on the effects of family background, financial challenges, race/ethnicity, and gender. -- Susan Albertine, senior scholar, Association of American Colleges and Universities, and coauthor, Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success
Learning from the Learners tracks students in a public, regional, comprehensive university across a range of majors and demographic backgrounds, investigating the factors that influence their successincluding academic preparation and finances but also family life, study habits, and even attitudes about college itselfthat change as they experience it. And then, remarkably, the authors sustain their gaze for ten years, through changes in campus leadership, a debilitating recession, and dramatic changes in enrollment. The resulting analysis vividly conveys the attitudes, misconceptions, and learning habits that affect todays college students. Along the way, we get concrete, practical ideas for shaping those influences in our students favor. Its also a welcome illustration of how to think differently about student success, defining it beyond persistence in good academic standing to include agency, the fresh understanding that the world is theirs to improve on, lead, and take care ofstarting with the world of the campus. These are crucial hallmarks of college learning, happening right before our eyes, but they are also notoriously hard to describe and measure. Berry, Huber, and Rawitch show us how. -- Ken O'Donnell, interim vice provost, California State University Dominguez Hills

Author Bio

Elizabeth Berry is professor emerita at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). She initiated and was director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, the faculty pedagogy support center at CSUN. She has served as codirector of the Learning Habits Project since 2007. Bettina J. Huber was CSUNs director of Institutional Research (IR) until her retirement in 2017. She was also codirector of the Learning Habits Project from 2007 until 2017. Cynthia Z. Rawitch is professor and administrator emerita at CSUN. Prior to coming to CSUN as a part-time instructor in 1972, she was a reporter and editor at the Associated Press in Los Angeles and professor-in-residence for the Los Angeles Times Minority Editorial Training Program (METPRO).