[Efficacy of the program "Testas's (mis)adventures" to promote the deep approach to learning]. / Eficacia del programa "(Des)venturas de Testas" para la promoción de un enfoque profundo de estudio.

This paper provides information about the efficacy of a tutorial training program intended to enhance elementary fifth graders' study processes and foster their deep approaches to learning. The program "Testas's (mis)adventures" consists of a set of books in which Testas, a typical student, reveals and reflects upon his life experiences during school years. These life stories are nothing but an opportunity to present and train a wide range of learning strategies and self-regulatory processes, designed to insure students' deeper preparation for present and future learning challenges. The program has been developed along a school year, in a one hour weekly tutorial sessions. The training program had a semi-experimental design, included an experimental group (n=50) and a control one (n=50), and used pre- and posttest measures (learning strategies' declarative knowledge, learning approaches and academic achievement). Data suggest that the students enrolled in the training program, comparing with students in the control group, showed a significant improvement in their declarative knowledge of learning strategies and in their deep approach to learning, consequently lowering their use of a surface approach. In spite of this, in what concerns to academic achievement, no statistically significant differences have been found.

Eficacia del programa «(Des)venturas de Testas» para la promoción de un enfoque profundo de estudio / Efficacy of the program «Testas’s (mis)adventures» to promote the deep approach to learning

En este artículo se aporta información sobre la eficacia de un programa tutorial para la mejora de los procesos de estudio y promoción de enfoques profundos de aprendizaje. El programa «(Des)venturas de Testas» se organiza en torno a un conjunto de libros que relatan las experiencias vividas por Testas, un alumno típico, a lo largo de su escolaridad. Estas historias constituyen la oportunidad para trabajar un amplio repertorio de estrategias de aprendizaje y procesos de autorregulación, pretendiendo capacitar a los alumnos para aprendizajes actuales y futuros más profundos. El programa se llevó a cabo durante un curso académico, una hora semanal en clases de tutoría. El diseño utilizado fue cuasi-experimental, con grupo experimental (n= 50) y grupo control (n= 49), y medidas pre y postest (conocimiento declarativo de estrategias de aprendizaje, enfoques de aprendizaje y rendimiento académico). Los datos obtenidos muestran que los alumnos que participan en el programa de capacitación, en relación a sus compañeros del grupo control, mejoran significativamente en cuanto al dominio de conocimiento declarativo respecto de las estrategias de aprendizaje y del enfoque profundo, y disminuye el uso de un enfoque de estudio superficial, aunque no se obtienen mejoras estadísticamente significativas en el rendimiento académico (AU)

This paper provides information about the efficacy of a tutorial training program intended to enhance elementary fifth graders’ study processes and foster their deep approaches to learning. The program «Testas’s (mis) adventures» consists of a set of books in which Testas, a typical student, reveals and reflects upon his life experiences during school years. These life stories are nothing but an opportunity to present and train a wide range of learning strategies and self-regulatory processes, designed to insure students’ deeper preparation for present and future learning challenges. The program has been developed along a school year, in a one hour weekly tutorial sessions. The training program had a semi-experimental design, included an experimental group (n=50) and a control one (n=50), and used pre- and posttest measures (learning strategies’ declarative knowledge, learning approaches and academic achievement). Data suggest that the students enrolled in the training program, comparing with students in the control group, showed a significant improvement in their declarative knowledge of learning strategies and in their deep approach to learning, consequently lowering their use of a surface approach. In spite of this, in what concerns to academic achievement, no statistically significant differences have been found (AU)