Journal of Classroom Teaching & Learning: How high school and college students learn differently

A Comparative Study on the Effect of Age on Learning:
How do High School and College Students learn differently?

By Roberto Ramirez
EDSC 4322-60 Human Development and Instruction

School of Education
University of Texas at Brownsville

Spring 2008

This Paper was presented at the 2nd Conference of Elementary Secondary Teaching & Learning (CESTL) in April, 2008, Brownsville, Texas. If you have any questions or comments regarding this paper, please contact the authort directly at ramirez870@aol.com.

Introduction

Age and learning go hand and hand with education and how we become educated. Over the years, numerous theorists and psychologists have studied how high school and college students differ in their learning styles and how their age affects their learning. In our era, many high school graduates still cannot be successful in college without stumbling several times.

High school is a critical period for most people due to the unique social, cognitive, psychological, and sexual needs at this particular stage of life. In general, most high school students live by a different creed than other age groups of students. According to the social learning concept, high school students are more concerned with their appearances and popularity, being athletic, participating in extracurricular activities, socializing or going out with friends, and “hunting” for the opposite sex. This concept explains why high school students more tend to imitate others who they have observed or interacted with (Newman & Newman, 1991).

In addition, this creed sometimes jeopardizes their learning as well as distracts them from preparing for the next academic stage: college. Also, some high school students, after losing the opportunity to succeed after high school, often find themselves way behind their peers. They never actually relearn the course materials until they are much older.
Further, this creed is very different from what most college students live by as students.

College, however, is the period when most independence is achieved by most students. Generally speaking, college students are more motivated to do well in school and are less likely to be distracted by other things (e.g., appearances, popularity, peers) as high school students are because they are more aware of the consequences without education. Arthur Chickering conducted some research on college students and stated that college students have more of a competence crisis, meaning that they achieve this “sense of competence, the confidence that one has in one’s ability to cope with what comes and to achieve it successfully” (Pascarela & Terenzini, 1991). Furthermore, most college students by this time have already had some experience in the work force and come to know that a college degree can help out their job position, salary, and even prestige in their near future.

In this comparative study, I intend to investigate the learning difference between high school students and college students by exploring the following question: How do high school and college students learn differently?

Literature Review

High school and college are considered as the hardest levels for most students’ learning. Many psychologists, scientists, and educational theorists have dedicated their lives to understand student characteristics at these two stages and their learning. These people include Arthur Chickering, Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, and James Marcia. Erik Erikson’s psychosocial development theory had a great influence on my study. Moreover, James Marcia’s identity statuses concurs with Erik Erikson’s theory, and goes into further detail on how high school students learn and is equally important.

According to Erik Erikson’s theory, most high school students experience a psychological crisis, which he calls “Identity vs. Role confusion.” High school is the stage where the older teens are trying to find out their own identity such as who they really are and how to fit in their environments. If this identity is not achieved, they will have a harder time figuring out who they are and who they want to become, which will cause “role confusion” according to Erikson. Role confusion makes students feel like they have to act the way their peers act or react in order to fit in. College students, however, are in another stage which Erikson calls “Intimacy vs. Isolation.” This stage is after the identity has been achieved and it is a time for students to establish close and stable relationships with friends and most importantly with the opposite sex. If this close and stable relationship is not established, students will feel disconnected with the society and can become anti-social. This “sense of isolation” can lead to non-participation behavior in other life acitivities such as dating, mating, and even love relationships. It can also lead to what James Marcia calls “moratorium,” which can make them dissatisfied with school and reject parental and social values (Snowman & Biehler, 2006).

The age difference between high school and college students can also be explained by Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, which is most dependent on the formal operations section, in various ways. Piaget described that even though transferring from high school to college is the period when “formal operational reasoning is most likely to develop,” some students are still not operating in this stage until their later college years (Pascarela & Terenzini, 1991).

Unlike high school students who do not really care for their future after high school, college students become more conscientious about their performance in various tasks including school tasks (Newman & Newman, 1991). This explains, according to the Newmans, the new sense of commitment, which is a positive step towards every aspect in life, especially in education.

Methodology

This study was conducted using the qualitative research method. This method was chosen because data collection is done by participant observations combined with interviews, making the qualitative method more proper in answering my research question.

Research Questions

How do high school and college students learn differently?

Research Site

This research was conducted in two research sites: One high school and one university. The high school has a student population of over three thousand and approximately two hundred teachers. This high school was located in a small city in Southern Texas. The other research site was in the University of Texas at Brownsville, a public university with a student population of over seventeen thousand.

Research Participants

This study included two sets of participants: one high school class and one college class. The high school students were observed in a government class. Since government was a senior class, all students were upper class students who were around 17 or 18 years of age. The college students were mostly juniors and seniors, and were taking an upper Government course whose ages ranged from lower 20s to upper 30s.

Research Methods

Observations
In this research, both high school and college students were observed in the natural classroom setting. In the high school, I observed a government class for six times (one-hour each time) and collected data in this manner. In the college class, I observed a Government course taught by a teaching assistant, who was very qualified and experienced. I observed mostly juniors and seniors college students for four times (one-hour for each observation). I monitored and logged down my observations and comments on how they responded to visual and oral lectures, which were the most common styles of teaching in both high school and in college levels. While writing classroom observational field notes, I also kept an observation journal reflecting on the teacher’s classroom teaching strategies after each observation.

Interviews
In addition to classroom observation, I also conducted individual interviews with the government high school teacher and one of her students. Interviews “produce rich, descriptive data about how participants interpret their world” (Strauss, 1987). The purpose of the interview was to understand how learning takes place in the high school classroom and how it could be improved, in their opinion, to better prepare them for college. I also conducted an interview with a college student from that observed course. The interviews were used to compare students’ experiences from high school to college. Interviews with these students and teachers will give my research some insiders’ perspective on learning.

Discussion Board
The last research method used for this study was the class Discussion Board which I conducted with all the peers in one of my college class. For this discussion board, I posted my research question to the whole class and received responses from my peers, who shared their perspectives about high school and college learning. Since the discussion board was based on their own experiences, it provided me a different perspective on what affected high school students’ learning from college students’ point of view.

Findings

Through conducting this study, I found some very interesting results, which could be useful for future high school students entering college. The findings for this research can be divided into three parts: observations, discussion board responses, and the interviews or questionnaires.

One thing I found from the observation was that the high school level class was very energetic and had strong sense of community. The college level class was more of a conventional using teacher-centered teaching format. Although these two classes were very different, they both created effective learning in students according to my observation. However, through my close observations, I found that students in the high school classroom learned more effectively than college students. I noticed that they are interested in topic being discussed. In this class, the teacher used videos, pictures, and fun activities to keep the class interested, although it was a government class, a class which was often perceived by high school students as boring.

Secondly, I found that high school students were taught using more visual aids while college students were taught using more audio styles. As the teacher expressed to me during the interview that high school students should be taught “visually supplemented with auditory,” because it creates a more engaging learning environment for high school students. In my observations, I found that the highs school level was mostly taught in a visual way and the college was more auditory such as lectures. During my time observing the high school level, I found that approximately 83% of the class (19 out of 23 students) seemed to be learning much better with the visual lessons, compared to the 77% (20 out of 26 students) at the college level. This was partially because upper class college students need more information that visual lectures provide, of a certain topic, than a high school student.

Furthermore, high school students did not react favorably to lecturing which is mainly auditory learning. Only 30% of the high school class (7 out of 23 students) showed interest in learning with this type of lecture. On the other hand, 88% college students showed favor in auditory lectures. This proves Chickering theory of the “seven vectors” in regards to “developing purpose,” which states that because of the ability to look to a near future, college students try to do better in their academics to know “who I will become” and “where I will be going,” even if they have to concentrate more in the lessons than they did in high school (Pascarela & Terenzini, 1991).

As for how teachers should teach based on these different learning styles, I found that there are different perspectives on this. The high school teacher who I interviewed explained that since she was a college professor in previous years, she was relatively familiar with the differences between the two learning levels. She informed me that students who graduate from high school should be taught in the same style but with different expectations. She believed that college professors should take into consideration that these students do not need to be reminded that they “are not in high school anymore” because it puts more pressure on their own expectations, which could affect their commitment to college.

Moreover, through these interviews, I found that both the teacher and students shared similar responses. For example, one of the questions asked was, “what is the difference between high school and college learning?” and they all (two students and one teacher) said it was more sophisticated in college than in high school, meaning that college requires a more intellectual ability than high school. These responses concur with Piaget’s cognitive theory in regards to having formal operational develop later in the college years and not immediately after you graduate from high school (Pascarela & Terenzini, 1991).

Regarding the question of what needs to be done in order to be prepare high school students for college, the answers were very different. The high school student answered “learn the state recommended strategies for… math, reading, writing, and science… for the TAKS.” However, the college student believed, that old routines are what, will affect a student from being able to learn effectively. His responses involved experience and most of all Piaget’s formal operation stage because he stressed for the recent graduate to “respond to the form a problem rather than the content.” Meaning that content of subjects will not do much good if you do not address the problems with “time management and study habits.”

Lastly, I found that high school students differ from college students in terms of motivation and goals for the future. For example, the discussion board results showed that 77% of my classmates (17 out of 22) did not really care about grades or learning when they were in high school. 77% of them did not care for the future when they were in high school. Also, I found that almost 70% (15 out of 22) of my peers thought, based on their own experience, that high school students do not have a well-developed sense of responsibility like college students do. In the discussion board postings, one student stated from a personal experience that high school students do not have “awareness of responsibilities” because they see high school as the final opportunity to be irresponsible before the enter college. This lack of motivation in school and also unclear about what their future would be like affected how they learned and how prepared they were as students when entering college.

Conclusions

In conclusion, this study found that high school and college students do learn differently in different aspects. First of all, high school students have a lack of interest in their future making them less motivated in learning; while most college students are highly motivated to learn because of the fact that they realize the value of education. Secondly, the sense or search of identity is used inappropriately in the high school level. For example, to cope with peers instead of finding themselves academically, some high school students were forced to participate in some activities against their own will. Thirdly, high school students were taught using more of visual aids while college students were taught using more of audio aids. Lastly, Responsibilities are less developed in high school students compared to college students because some high school students take education for granted.

Applications

Even though many strategies and approaches have been provided for high school teachers to use in order to better prepare their students for the college, I would still like to offer some advices for high school teachers. Primarily, high school teacher should raise students’ awareness about the future and how education should be a priority for students. This way, students can know what they want to do after they graduate having individual goals and expectations for their future. Thinking about future and establishing a future goal will also help with the motivational issues which many high school students lack. Also, high school teachers should give their students more responsibilities which students are capable of handling themselves. For example, they are encouraged to do assignments, develop a good study habit or routine, and set learning goals on their own. Lastly, teachers should emphasize the importance of auditory learning by supplementing it with visual lessons to better prepare students for the college instructional methods.

References

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meaning in social inquiry / edited by Richard Jessor, Anne Colby, and Richard A.
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Erikson, Erik H. Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
1980

Newman, Barbara and Philip Newman. Development Through life: A Psychosocial
Approach. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1991.

Pascarella, Ernest and Patrick Terenzini. How College Affects Students. San Francisco:
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Snowman, Jack and Robert Biehler. Psychology Applied to Teaching. Boston: Houghton
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Strauss, Anselm. Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. New York: Cambridge
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