Journal #2

The article I looked at, “Easy Grading makes ‘deep learning’ more important” is about the laziness of students at universities. The article explains that engagement and involvement in courses creates a better understanding of the information. It says that students are only determined to get a good grade in a class instead of conceptually understanding the information. Therefore students are being lazy and just doing the minimum work required to receive an A in the class. However the article goes on to explain that professors too are being lazy. Many times professors are plagued with too many students and not enough time and therefore will hand out decent or pretty good grades rather than explain to an angry student why they didn’t get a good grade.

            I can see this source responding to my other source because the first source talks about deep vs. surface studying and this article talks about deep understanding of information and how it plays a roll in academics. While the first article talks more about study habits, this article touches upon it but mostly talks about academics and grades.

            Looking at this article has brought me to look at WHY study habits are even an issue. Why is it that important to study and get a good grade? While yes, getting a good grade generally means you understand the topic, it doesn’t mean you understand the topic in the right way. For example, when studying mathematics equations, memorizing them may help you for the test but will not help you apply the equations to real life situations in future use because you simply memorized them and did not fully understand them. I think looking at the relationship between study habits and prospective career paths and academic success should be looked at because some employers are looking for individuals who understand the knowledge well but did not necessarily have good college GPAs and others are looking for individuals who had good college GPAs who can learn the knowledge while being employed by them. For example, pre-med students and residency programs. You have to have good grades to get into med school and in residency programs you learn a lot of the practical knowledge you’ll need to know in your career.

            I think looking at why study habits are so important in college life would benefit my research. To answer this I’d have to look up statistics on study habits vs. major, and the probabilities of students employed in their field of choice having had bad GPAs throughout college. This brings me to the question of whether or not study habits matter. To answer this I’d again have to look at academic success compared to specific majors. My next big step is going to be to look at the correlation between study habits and majors, and then the importance of academic success for future employment.