Analysing metalearning in first-year undergraduates through their reflective discussions and writing

This study reports on an initiative using Meyer's (2000a) Reflections on Learning Inventory (RoLI) to bring first-year students' understandings of themselves as learners together with the expectations of their academic subjects. Students on a generic skills-based programme were asked to discussed their RoLI profiles with their academic tutor, and then write about what they had discovered about their beliefs and approaches to learning and how this fitted the demands of their academic subjects. The findings from this study suggest that one-to-one discussion of an individual learning profile is useful as a first step in raising levels of metalearning awareness in first-year undergraduates. There is also some evidence to suggest that tutors might be able to make predictions about how a student will perform academically, based on a combined interpretation of the RoLI profile together with an analysis of their reflective writing about their learning approach.