{"id":1712,"date":"2026-07-05T03:45:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T03:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobs.qalamscholar.com\/?p=1712"},"modified":"2026-07-05T03:45:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T03:45:23","slug":"how-do-secondary-students-study-and-are-their-choices-related-to-their-beliefs-in-achievement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobs.qalamscholar.com\/?p=1712","title":{"rendered":"How Do Secondary Students Study, and Are Their Choices Related to Their Beliefs in Achievement?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cover image by <\/em>Rosy \/ Bad Homburg \/ Germany<\/em><\/a> from <\/em>Pixabay<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

By Megan Sumeracki<\/em><\/p>\n

Lately, my preschool-aged daughter has been listening to one of her Tonies* that she calls \u201cPositive Hippo\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Listening to Coach Hippo in a waiting room.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

*For the uninitiated, a Toniebox is a little speaker. They work with special figurines, called Tonies. The kids put a Tonie on the box and it starts playing whatever is loaded. Some read stories, some play music, and some are like little screen-free \u201cshows\u201d that teach the kids about concepts and sing. By the way, this is not a paid advertisement; we don\u2019t do that on our site! My family just really loves our Toniebox.<\/em><\/p>\n

Coach Hippo is all about helping develop healthy habits, like exercising, eating a variety of whole foods, getting enough rest, and importantly, believing in yourself. The result is that my daughter is constantly asking us to \u201cDo Gym Class\u201d with her, and runs around the house signing songs with lyrics like, \u201cthe best I can be\u201d and \u201cI am a super star, today I will shine!!\u201d.<\/p>\n

I love that she is developing confidence, and that this is part of what she is learning as healthy habits. I have been thinking a lot about mindset, motivation, and self-efficacy lately, with relation to my daughter and also my college students. <\/p>\n

This brings me to the point of today\u2019s blog, a paper by H\u00e9ctor Ruiz-Mart\u00edn, Fermando Blanco, and Marta Ferrero examined how secondary students report studying, and the associations these choices have with students\u2019 beliefs in their own abilities (1<\/em>). <\/p>\n

There have been a number of surveys conducted over the last 20 years asking what students report doing when they study, and attempting to link those results to student achievement. The bulk of this work has been conducted with students in higher education, and typically looks at academic achievement and students\u2019 predictions about how well the strategies will help them. This 2024 paper by Ruiz-Mart\u00edn and colleagues seems unique to me because they studied younger students (i.e., secondary) and their self-efficacy. Understanding student attitudes towards various strategies, and how engaging in them affects their belief in their own ability to achieve (i.e., self-efficacy), mindset, and anxiety related to testing is, I believe, essential if we hope to promote evidence-based study strategies and see students adopt them.<\/p>\n

The Study<\/h1>\n

The researchers collected data from students in grades 7 through 12 from a number of schools across Catalonia (the northeastern region of Spain). Ultimately, their final sample was over 3,400 students. The researchers administered two surveys to the students.<\/p>\n

The first survey contained questions about the study strategies that students use, drawing heavily from the previous research in this area. The students indicated how often they engaged in the various study behaviors described in the study, such as retrieval practice, various forms of elaboration, rereading, highlighting, copying, etc.<\/p>\n

The second survey assessed the students\u2019 beliefs and attitudes toward learning. The scales assessed:<\/p>\n