Claire Affleck, Katie Curling, & Becky Follin (2001)

Our study investigated how the effect of self-awareness of self-schema influenced study habits of students. Self-schema, which can be defined as a framework of knowledge about the self formed from past experiences, is thought to be a factor that influences people’s thoughts and actions. Aschematics have no defined self-schema in a particular dimension. If one is aware of his or her self-schema, one will act in accordance to what his/her self-concept dictates. People prefer to have their self-schemas verified, rather than contradicted. People behave in ways consistent with their self-schema in order to verify their self-schema (Kendzierski & Whitaker, 1997). In another experiment, the researchers showed that self-schemas tend to regulate people’s behaviors when made self-aware (Froming, Nasby, & McManus,1998). People with self-schemas are less likely to acknowledge counter schematic information than aschematics (Markus 1977). This research showed again that people prefer to not contradict their self-schemas. If a person has a set self-schema they will not likely accept information that does not coincide with this; however, if one is aschematic he/she is likely to accept all types of information.

Based on the research, we created three hypotheses. The first was that students with "good" self -schemas would improve study habits when made aware of their self-schema. Secondly, students with "bad" self-schemas would worsen study habits when made aware of their self-schema. Thirdly, the study habits of aschematic students would remain unchanged when the students are made aware of their self-schema.

The participants in our study were 37 female undergraduate students from the first-year class at Sweet Briar College. Our study consisted of four sessions which took place over the course of a two-week period. During the first session, the participants completed the Study habits and self-schema questionnaire which consisted of 100 questions designed to assess the study habits, beliefs, and attitudes of the participants. Based on the scores from the questionnaire, the participants were placed into one of three groups: the "good" self-schema group, the "bad" self-schema group, and the aschematic group. Each group of participants was then divided into two subgroups: the "aware" subgroup and the "unaware" subgroup. During the second session, the participants were left notes designed to reinforce awareness of self-schema or to maintain unawareness of self-schema. The good-aware subgroup received notes reminding them to study hard, the bad-aware subgroup received notes reminding them of the upcoming social events, and the aschematic subgroup received notes reminding them of both these things. The unaware subgroups all received notes on a topic unrelated to study habits or social events. During the third session, the participants completed Q-sorts. The aware groups received Q-sorts relating to study habits while the unaware subgroups received a filler Q-sort. During the fourth session, the participants again completed the Study Habits and Attitudes questionnaire.

The participants' scores from the first and second questionnaire were then analyzed and compared. A one-way ANOVA was used to analyze our data, and overall significance was found only for the categories of good, bad, and aschematic students (p< .05). Although we created the categories for good, bad, and aschematic students, categories were based on the participant's scores and there was a significant difference between each category. No other significance was found, although a pattern emerged for differences in scores for bad and aschematic students. While good students remained the same from pre-test to post-test, aschematic students actually went down 10 points and bad students went up 10 points. While this was opposite from what we hypothesized to happen, it does provide information to be further studied. One possible reason for the lack of significance was due to the length of time between the pre-test and the post-test. The project was done in two weeks rather than three or four weeks because of the approaching end of the semester and Easter break. Further research should investigate the hypotheses of good students remaining the same, aschematic students decreasing study habits, and bad students improving study habits.