Using the Biggs’ Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) as a

diagnostic tool to identify “at-risk” students – a Preliminary Study

By Ms Tay Mui Hua

Mechanical Engineering Department
Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore

Ms Shirley Williams
Teaching & Learning Centre
Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore

A/Prof Poh Sui Hoi

Psychological Studies Division
School of Education
NTU/NIE, Singapore

Abstract
This study explores the use of Biggs’ Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) as a diagnostic tool
for identifying low-achieving and surface learners. Six groups of 1st year students were
selected for this study; two groups were of high-ability, two groups of average ability and two
groups of low-ability (classified using the G.C.E. ‘O’ Level Maths results). After the SPQ
was administered, the survey data was processed and two types of report were generated:

(a) a class profile report for each class tutor showing the approaches of his/her
students;
(b) a feedback report to each individual student explaining the characteristics of
his/her approach, the outcomes of having such an approach and strategies oh how
to move to a deep+achieving aproach.

Focused group interviews were conducted with the class tutors and students to find out if
both parties found the reports helpful. For the tutors, whether intervention strategies such as
counselling, teaching and learning methods, and the classroom environment could then be
used to help the low-achieving and surface learners. For the students, whether the awareness
of their approach and the recommended strategies helped them to modify or change their
study methods.
Title:

Using the Biggs’ Study Process Questionnaire as a diagnostic tool to identify “at-risk”
students – a Preliminary Study

The Situation
The academic year in Ngee Ann Polytechnic is broken up into two 16-week semesters with a
mid-semester break in week 8. Many modules require students to take a common test in
week 9 as a learning progress indicator. The tests are graded in week 10 and the results are
released to the students in week 11 or 12.

Students who fail more than one module are identified as being at risk of failing the semester,
the result of which is to re-take the modules in the following semester, culminating in them
taking longer than 3 years to complete the Diploma course.

These students are then counselled by the class tutor in the hope of motivating them to work
harder. Academic intervention strategies such as peer tutoring and remedial classes are made
available to the students. At the same time, letters are sent to their parents informing them of
their child’s performance on the common tests. This keeps the parents informed of the ‘at-
risk’ status of their children and it is hoped that there will be home encouragement to spur
these students on to improve their learning performance. By week 16, the semester is over
and the students have to prepare to take on the year-end examinations.

The Problem
On reviewing the situation in the light of learning literature and theories, the researchers felt
that, while the ‘fear of failure’ mentality in the system does to some extent prompt these ‘at-
risk’ students to adopt strategies to avoid unnecessary repeating of modules, the measures
may not help as much in improving the quality of learning, which in turn is affected by levels
of motivation and students’ learning styles and approaches. This ‘fear of failure’ appears to
promote failure avoidance study tactics which tend to be more surface, short-term stop-gap
efforts at just managing to help them clear the assessment check points and move on to the
next semester. The deficit in learning usually still exists.

The researchers looked for an intervention tool that would better address the learning needs
of the students.

The Intervention Tool

This study uses the Biggs Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) as a diagnostic tool to identify
the learning approaches of the students. The SPQ, a 42-item questionnaire, provides
feedback on the learning approaches in the three domains, namely, the surface, deep and
achieving domains which are further broken down into motives and strategies used. Surface
motives are extrinsic such as fear of failing and surface strategies include reproductive or rote
learning and “minimalistic” learning – learning that is just enough to meet the course
demands. Such an approach often leads to poor academic performance.
The deep approaches, on the other hand, is about seeking to understand and relate
understanding to other subjects and to develop personal meaning for subject material.
However, a deep learner may sometimes wander off-track and not follow course syllabi and
outlines. Academic performance, especially in a more structured system, may also be
adversely affected.

An achieving approach is about maximising performance while optimising efforts to achieve

it. These are strategic learners who may use surface or deep approaches, whichever that can
help them to get high marks.

In order to facilitate the administration of the questionnaire, a web-based version of the

questionnaire and automatic generation of the feedback to students and class profile report
toto tutors were developed.

The Research Questions

The researchers wanted to investigate whether the SPQ could be used as a friendly diagnostic
tool to enable tutors to identify the at-risk students, and if it could, whether it would be an
effective tool to help students develop and use strategies that would help improve the quality
and depth of learning.

The researchers based the study on the following hypotheses:

(1) that students identified as low-achieving and surface from the Biggs’ SPQ are not
academically successful;

(2) that knowing their approaches to study is helpful to the students who want to improve;

(3) that knowing students’ approaches to studying is helpful to the tutors teaching them in
that they can use appropriate teaching strategies that matches their learning approaches.

The Research Procedure

At the beginning of the semester, a meeting was arranged with a group of first-year tutors.
During the meeting, the Biggs SPQ, research studies on the study approaches of students and
their outcomes were explained to the tutors. The tutors were then asked to volunteer to
participate in the study.

The tutors then informed the students in their classes about the Biggs’ SPQ and that they will
be visited by the researchers who will administer the SPQ during their mathematics tutorial
classes which were chosen because the tutorials were computer-based. This happened during
the third week of the semester. The researchers first explained the purpose of the study and
emphasised the importance of responding truthfully to the questionnaire items to ensure the
accuracy of a report they would receive telling them about their study approaches.

The students upon completion of the SPQ immediately received an on-line report of their
study approaches, the outcomes of taking such approaches and strategies they could use for
improvement (see Appendix1). As the Maths lab was not equipped with a printer, the
researchers printed the reports off-line and passed them to the respective class tutors for
distribution to the students during their lessons with them.

The researchers also printed a class profile for each class and highlighted the low-achieving
and surface students to the class tutor. The class tutors were asked to confirm if the class
profile matched their perception of the students’ learning behaviour.

The class tutors were then asked to go through the student report in class and counsel the at-
risk students individually. They were also asked to monitor the progress of these students.

At the end of the semester, the researchers conducted focused group interviews with some of
the students as well as a separate interview with the tutors. Also, the students’ overall
performance in the semester (using the weighted average of each student) was correlated with
the SPQ data.

Preliminary Findings
This study is not complete in that the researchers up to this point in time have not been able
to interview the tutors. Findings reported here come from the focused group interview with
students, correlation of the SPQ with the students’ weighted average, and some initial
observations of the tutors.

(1) Initial observations of the tutors

The tutors were asked to compare the SPQ class profile report with their observation of
the students. All the tutors reported that those classified as surface and low-achieving by
the SPQ were observed to be weaker students in their Mathematics class.

(2) Focused Group Interview (students)

Upon invitation, eight students turned up for the interview. The SPQ profile of the eight
students are as follows:

S/N Student Scores on SPQ Compared with norms Academic

performance
Surface Deep Achieving Surface Deep Achieving Weighted
Average
1 Student A 22 59 52 -- ++ + 96
2 Student B 54 63 62 + ++ ++ 73
3 Student C 59 65 66 ++ ++ ++ 52
4 Student D 69 68 69 ++ ++ ++ 73
5 Student E 62 51 47 ++ + 0 60
6 Student F 51 47 47 + 0 0 68
7 Student G 49 44 38 0 0 - 73
8 Student H 36 19 31 - -- -- 66
 In the group, there were 1 deep learner, 3 who are high on all three domains and 4 surface
and low-achieving learners.

Some salient points that surfaced from the interview are:

(1) All the students had no difficulty understanding the report on their study approaches.
(2) They all agreed that the SPQ reflected quite accurately on the way they study.
(3) Most of the low-achieving and surface learners quickly browsed through and did not
give any attention to the recommended strategies provided in the report. They said it
is change would be difficult because they “had been studying like this for the last
sixteen years.”
(4) One of the high achievers said he did not take up any of the strategies recommended
because he has his own methods of studying and he knows his strengths and
weaknesses.
(5) Of important note is the feedback from the deep learner who said that the report was
very helpful to him because he realised that to be more achieving, he has to become
more focused on the course syllabi when reading widely.
(6) The students who were found to be low-achieving and surface reported were either
lacking interest in the course, or not having any strong like or dislike for the course or
simply did not like the teaching method used (preferring practical classes to attending
lectures).
(7) The surface and low-achieving students were not confident of passing the exams – in
fact, they worry that they may have to take supplementary exams. This is not so with
the deep and high-achieving students.
(8) Those very high on the surface scale felt that the pace of the lessons in the course
very fast.
(9) One student who scored very low on all three domains (and therefore likely to be ‘at-
risk’) reported that despite having very good lecturers who were “beyond his
expectations”, he was not motivated to take a deeper or more achieving approach to
learning.
(10) However, the other students, especially the four students ( 3 low-achieving
and 1 high on all three domains) who reported that most of their lecturers were not
approachable and even ‘sarcastic’, felt that having approachable and able-to-teach
lecturers is key to helping them develop deep understanding of the subject matter.
(11) Students who, regardless of their approaches, found lecturers unapproachable,
resort to learning from their peers and the computer-assisted lessons, if any. On the
other hand, students who have approachable lecturers preferred learning from these
lecturers because “they are able to show more methods of solving a problem than the
computer, sometimes short cuts.”

(3) Correlation of the SPQ approaches with the academic performance

Correlation of the scores on each of the domains – surface, deep and achieving and the
weighted average of the students’ results was done and the correlation data are as
follows:
 Approach to Studying
Surface Deep Achieving

Spearman’s rho -0.453** -0.062 -0.141

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

This confirms research findings that surface learners are not likely to do well academically.
It is surprising to note that those who are classified as achieving by the Biggs’ SPQ do not do
well academically.

Some Tentative Conclusions

This study is still incomplete and the researchers venture to make some tentative conclusions
based on the data gathered so far.

The correlation of the SPQ with the Students’ academic performance shows that students
who are surface tend to have lower academic perfomance. However, the low-achieving
students are not necessarily at risk of failing the course. Hence, the SPQ as a diagnostic tool
to identify at-risk students in this particular course is questionable. The researchers believed
that there are “noise” factors at play that were not taken into consideration in this study. A
check with the individual module results shows that students can do very well in some
modules but not in other modules. Thus, taking the overall weighted average as an indicator
of their academic performance may be inaccurate.

The report that gives feedback to the students on their learning approaches appeared to be
useful to those who wants to change (for example, the deep learner) but does not appear to do
anything for students who felt that it is difficult to change the way they study. And if their
present way of studying does not affect their performance adversely, they will not likely
change in spite of the feedback.

As the interview with the tutors was not yet conducted at this point in time, the researchers
are not able to form any conclusions about how helpful the class profile report (which
contains the students’ approaches to learning) has been.
Appendix 1: Student Report

XXXYYYZZZ Polytechnic
PPPQQQRRR Department

Dear : XXX YYY ZZZ

This is an analysis of your approach to studying and it depends very much on how accurately
you have responded to the questionnaire items. It is important to know that your approach is
the result of a response to a situation and therefore is not cast in stone. You can, if you want
to, change or modify your approach and become a more successful learner – there are
strategies suggested below to help you.

What is your approach?

Your approach to study profile is as shown. Note that the first row of figures indicate the
approach based on your own scores on the questionnaire. The second row of symbols indicate
your approach relative to the scores of your cohort.

Surfac Deep Achieving

e
Your scores (maximum = 70) 55 32 42
Comparison with norms for your course* + -- o

How to interpret:
Very strong positive preference ++
Strong positive Preference +
No strong Preference o
Strong Negative Preference -
Very strong Negative Preference --

From the table above, establish whether you are a predominantly surface, deep or achieving
learner, or some combinations of the three. Write your approach here: [ ]
If you do not have any dominant patterns, it could mean either (a) you use different
approaches for different subject areas, (b) you do not use any particular approach because of
disinterest in what you are studying or (c) you may have misinterpret items in the
questionnaire.

What do all these approaches mean?

Read the characteristics below pertaining to your approach or approaches:
Surface Characteristics Deep Characteristics Achieving Characteristics
• Learn without deep • learn with the intention to • mainly interested in
understanding understand getting high marks
• see study as a • relate previous knowledge • are deliberate and
requirement of the to new knowledge careful in planning
family/society that you • integrate knowledge from their study
must meet different subject areas • plan scheduled study
• see the main goal and • relate theoretical ideas to times
value of learning as everyday experiences • have organised note-
getting a qualification • distinguish between taking methods
• see parts of learning tasks concepts and examples • practise exam questions
as unrelated to each other • define own goals and to maximise scores
• do not personally relate to pursue them in one’s own • stick closely to the
the learning tasks way syllabus
What are some of the outcomes of these approaches?
Surface Outcomes Deep Outcomes Achieving Outcomes
• have limited • have long term retention of • generally perform well
understanding of knowledge in test and exams
theoretical concepts and • able to apply knowledge to • may become too
principles new situations competitive which can
• cannot distinguish • able to generate new lead to being isolated
between examples from meanings and novel ideas by other students
principles • become an independent • may not be able to
• have difficulty in learner form deep
developing a logical understanding and
argument interest in a subject
• cannot recognise key
ideas
• forgetting things learnt
very quickly

How can you modify your approaches to studying?

Here are some strategies for you to try out. The combination that will result in successful
academic pursuits is the Deep+Achieving approach.

Strategies for Surface learners Strategies for Deep learners Strategies for Achieving
learners
• use study skills to achieve • need to check frequently • very seldom can a
better grades that your own goals are in person learn on his/her
• try to develop an interest line with the course own; collaborating with
in the subject by looking objectives all kinds of classmates
for connections to • check with the teachers if can enhance your
everyday experiences you think you may be off- learning
• discuss what you learn track • develop also a deep
everyday with classmates approach if you want to
pursue higher
education

Thank you for doing the Study Process Questionnaire. I wish you enjoyment and success in
your study here at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. If you have any queries regarding this report,
please see your class tutor.

References:
1. Biggs, John B. 1987. Student Approaches to LEARNING and STUDYING. Australian Council for
Educational Research (ACER)
2. Biggs, John B. 1992. Why and How do Hong Kong Students Learn. Education Paper 14, Faculty
of Education, University of Hong Kong