productivity and efficacy

When the influence of skills and abilities attained in high school was statistically

controlled, many factors associated with current study behavior revealed reliable

relationships with cumulative GPA and fall semester GPA. Of particular relevance to the theoretical framework of deliberate practice, students who indicated that they

studied alone in an environment unlikely to contain distracters, tended to perform

better both in the current semester and cumulatively. It is worth noting that study

environment was a significant predictor of performance even after accounting for

3 It should be noted that when we compared participants who completed the diary to those who did not

complete the diary, the only significant difference between the groups was that the participants who

completed the diary were more likely to report an organized approach to studying, t(86) = �3.04, p < .004.

112 E.A. Plant et al. / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 96–116

previous performance. These findings are consistent with the importance of concen-

trated, deliberate practice for predicting high levels of performance (Ericsson, 1996,

2002; Ericsson et al., 1993) and self-regulated academic learning (Zimmerman, 1998,

2002). Further, when considering cumulative GPA, the overall amount of study time

only emerged as a significant predictor of performance when the quality of the study environment and scholastic aptitude at entry to college (SAT) were included in the

regression equation. Thus, it appears that the quantity of study time may only

emerge as a reliable factor that determines performance when the quality of study

time and the student�s SAT scores are also taken into consideration. In fact, the amount of study time was negatively related to both the study environment and

the SAT scores with no reliable evidence for a correlation between study environ-

ment and SAT scores.

This pattern of results suggests that students with higher SAT scores, most likely reflecting a higher level of previously attained relevant study skills and domain-spe-

cific knowledge, can attain the same or better grades with less study time. Indepen-

dent of that effect, those who study alone in a quiet environment may study more

effectively and, therefore, may attain a comparable performance with less overall

study time than those who study in a more disruptive environment. This finding is

consistent with previous studies of deliberate practice, where many activities within

a domain, such as playing games of golf and playing music with friends are far less

effective in improving performance than solitary deliberate practice (Ericsson, 1996; Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). In fact, mere experience in a domain, such as playing

chess games, does not reliably improve chess performance once the effects of solitary

practice are accounted for (Charness et al., 1996).

The literature on deliberate practice and self-regulated learning by skilled and ex-

pert performers shows that engagement in deliberate practice and study is typically

carefully scheduled (Ericsson, 1996, 2002; Zimmerman, 1998, 2002). Consistent with

these findings our study found that the degree to which students used long-term

planning was related to their cumulative GPA. In addition, this was the case even when high-school GPA and SAT scores were included in the analyses (also see Brit-

ton & Tesser, 1991). The evidence suggests that careful organization and goal setting

created a focused approach to studying and effective monitoring of goal accomplish-

ment, supporting deliberate-practice principles.

Our analysis also replicated the influence of other factors previously documented

to influence GPA. For example, the percentage of classes attended was correlated

with participants� current and cumulative GPA. That is, students who attended a higher percentage of their classes tended to achieve higher GPAs, which is consistent with the findings of Schuman et al. (1985). These findings are also consistent with the

model of deliberate practice. Attending classes would be important for engagement

in deliberate practice, since it is in the classroom where students receive instruction

regarding what information and skills need to be studied and practiced for high lev-

els of performance. In addition, many instructors design their tests based on the

material presented during lectures. However, in the regression analyses, attendance

was only a reliable predictor of GPA prior to the entry of other factors in the regres-

sion models. The inverse relationship between attendance and hours partying may

E.A. Plant et al. / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 96–116 113

have accounted for the reduced independent influence of attendance on GPA. Be-

cause students who spent more time partying were less likely to attend their classes,

these two variables may have been tapping into the same variance in performance

and, thus, when both were included in the regressions predicting cumulative and fall

semester GPA, their independent influence was reduced. A recent study manipulated attendance experimentally in a course and found suggestive improvements in grades

and mastery of the material, even material not covered in the lectures (Shimoff &

Catania, 2001). The number of hours students worked per week for pay was also re-

lated to their cumulative and current semester GPAs. That is, students who worked

more hours per week had lower GPAs.

In sum, our study identified several characteristics of students� behavior in college that were correlated with their cumulative GPA and fall-semester GPA, even when

the past performance (high-school GPA) and level of scholastic achievement (SAT) at their entry to the college were statistically controlled. Only one of these variables,

namely study environment, had a direct relationship with the fall-semester GPA that

was not explained by the accumulated GPA in college. Our interpretation of this pat-

tern of results is that college students have established habits for studying in college,

perhaps established in part in high school, that influence their tendency to attend clas-

ses, their tendency to use long-termplanning techniques, the amount of time they spend

partying, and their involvement in part-time work. These habits will influence past

grades and the cumulative GPAwill provide an aggregate reflection of these influences in a stable manner. If there were changes in these habits during the fall semester, the

associated changes were most likely too small to allow our study to detect them.

Our current findings are also highly consistent with self-regulated learning

approaches to academic performance (Pintrich, 2000; Puustininen & Pulkkinen,

2001; Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994; Zimmerman, 1998, 2000, 2002). However, these

approaches tend to focus primarily on the motivational and cognitive factors that

increase the likelihood of active and effective learning as opposed to identifying

the characteristics of study and learning activities where increased duration of engagement leads to improved performance. Our focus on deliberate practice led

us to describe many different factors related to academic performance (GPA) and

to identify relations between characteristics and durations of study activities and per-

formance. By focusing on observed engagement in these study activities, we can

avoid the issues of the motivational and habitual factors that lead students to engage

in them. However, a full understanding of academic achievement will likely require

careful consideration of both the activities that increase the productivity and efficacy

of study time (i.e., deliberate practice) as well as the social, cognitive, and motiva- tional factors that lead certain students to engage in these effective study activities.

By combining the deliberate-practice framework and the theoretical approaches of

self-regulated learning, future work may gain deeper insight into these issues.

4.1. Limitations and future directions

Our estimated relationship between study time and GPA measures most likely re-

flects a lower bound and would increase with better estimates for study time. Our

114 E.A. Plant et al. / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 96–116

measure of study behavior using daily diaries showed that for the sub-group report-

ing that the diary week was normal and representative, there was a high relationship

(r = .75) between questionnaire reports of study and the hours of study reflected in

the diaries. For this group we found reliable correlations between diary-reported

study and fall-semester GPA. These findings suggest that the relationship between study and grades, especially in the associated semester, might be stronger when stu-