Students do not, typically, give much time to thinking

about these three aspects of study: it can feel easier to

launch into the more tangible study skills of making

good notes or writing an essay. However, it is worth

putting time aside to think more strategically about

what learning is, what impacts on successful outcomes

and how, through reflection and planning, you

can exert greater control over your own academic

performance.

focuses on the learning process itself,

looking at how intelligence develops through learning,

the conditions that are necessary for learning to occur,

and how you can take an active role in creating the

optimum conditions for your study.

Successful study

 

intelligence' - or intelligent study?

It is often taken for granted that academic success

is the result of 'being clever' or 'bright' and that

this is something you are blessed with - or not - at

birth. Such thinking creates barriers to success.

It leads students to assume, falsely, that they will

either:

• continue to do well academically, on the

strength of being 'clever' alone, or

• fail to achieve the highest marks because they

are inherently less intelligent than others.

'Am I intelligent enough for university?'

This question haunts many students even if their

marks are excellent. They worry that 'secretly' or

'deep down' they aren't clever enough to succeed.

 

It is very common for students to underestimate

their potential or to lose confidence, especially

if, as happens to most students at some point,

they receive a lower mark than they had hoped

for. Many students can remember an occasion

in the past when someone such as a teacher or

relative undermined their confidence in their

abilities. Such memories can resurface, exercising a

disproportionate power to undermine self-belief.

 

Jot down your initial thoughts about how

your own views of intelligence, and those of

other people, may have affected your previous

academic performance - in both helpful and

unhelpful ways.

 

One reason students can become anxious

about their capabilities is that they haven't been

taught to evaluate their own work or to develop

criteria for doing so. As a result, they feel prey to

the whims of chance: good or bad marks 'just

happen', or depend on the luck of the draw of

how 'naturally clever' they are or which tutor they get


Last modified: Monday, 29 April 2024, 4:55 PM