Exploring Student Teachers’ Learning Strategies and the Relationship With Academic Achievement and Demographic Variables

Abstract

Diversity in Higher Education implies being able as teachers to meet students' needs and preferences to motivate them and facilitate their development and learning. This diversity derives, among others, from students' learning styles and strategies which can determine their academic success or failure. The purpose of this study was to examine student teachers' learning strategies and to determine whether these strategies differ according to some demographic variables (i.e. gender, Bachelor's degree, year of study) and students' academic performance. To this end, a cross-sectional survey design was conducted, and a convenience sample of 141 student teachers (20 males and 121 females) participated in the study. Students were enrolled in the first and second year of two Bachelor's degrees in Education: Early Education (n = 75) and Elementary Education (n = 66). Participants' age ranged between 18 and 42 years old (M = 19.88, SD = 2.73). The 5-point Likert scale questionnaire CEVEAPEU (Gargallo, Suárez-Rodríguez, & Pérez-Pérez, 2009) was administered during class time and descriptive and inferential analyses were conducted. Overall, student teachers report high intrinsic motivation, task value and internal attributions, as well as high levels of self-efficacy and expectations. Concerning strategies related to information processing, students highlighted the elaboration, transfer and use of information. Female students showed greater intrinsic motivation and anxiety control than males and used more strategies related to information elaboration, organization and transfer. Early education student teachers scored higher than elementary education student teachers in motivational, affective and information search and selection strategies. Second-year students showed greater motivational strategies than first-year students. They also scored higher in metacognitive strategies such as planning and in information processing and use strategies. Unexpectedly, students with lower academic performance, reported greater use of planning strategies and other strategies related to information processing, compared to those with average academic achievement. Differences in students' learning strategies highlight the need for accommodating the teaching styles to the characteristics of university students and also the development of programs oriented towards the improvement of students' strategic learning.

Estructura Factorial, Confiabilidad y Validez de Contenido de la Escala LASSI-HS en Estudiantes de Educación Secundaria

“…Comprender la estructura subyacente a las estrategias de aprendizaje y estudio proporciona datos útiles para brindar apoyo a los y las estudiantes en pos de promover sus estrategias de aprendizaje enfocándose en los tres amplios dominios del inventario (i.e., estrategias afectivas/de esfuerzo, estrategias cognitivas, estrategias que provocan ansiedad), en lugar de las diez estrategias (Fong et al, 2022). En segundo lugar, ofrece datos empíricos respecto de la validez y confiabilidad del instrumento para la evaluación de las EA en adolescentes de habla hispana, de este importante constructo vinculado estrechamente con el éxito académico (Chiner et al, 2020;Norzagaray et al, 2021;Martínez Cárdenas & Valencia Nuñez, 2021;Reyes et al, 2021).…”

“…Diversas investigaciones realizadas tanto en el nivel secundario como universitario, sostienen que existe una relación entre el rendimiento académico y las EA (Chiner et al, 2020;Norzagaray et al, 2021;Reyes et al, 2021). En efecto, se ha demostrado que a mayor uso de estrategias metacognitivas, vinculadas a la planificación y el monitoreo, mejor es el rendimiento del estudiante (Martínez Cárdenas & Valencia Núñez, 2021) y que el entrenamiento en EA resulta en un mejoramiento significativo del rendimiento en estudiantes universitarios (Córdoba Urbano & Marroquín Yerovi, 2018;Ramos, 2017).…”