Instructor recommendations for student learning strategies and metacognition: An analysis of undergraduate biology syllabi

Abstract

An inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities for marginalized students (i.e., opportunity gaps) leads to challenges in identifying effective study behaviors, metacognition, and academic help-seeking in higher education. While students benefit when these skills are taught explicitly through co-curricular workshops and courses, these interventions often require significant time investment from faculty and students, underscoring a need for alternative interventions that provide students with access to resources related to these skills. Course syllabi are one potential resource that can address these needs, and we asked to what extent biology syllabi are used for this purpose. We collected a national sample of introductory biology syllabi and used content analysis to determine if syllabi are learner-centered and whether they incorporate information on study behaviors, metacognition, and academic help-seeking. We found that most syllabi are not learner-centered, encourage ineffective study behaviors, did not include metacognition recommendations, and include incomplete academic help-seeking recommendations. We make several recommendations on how to incorporate complete, accurate information regarding study behaviors, metacognition, and academic help-seeking.