Learning Strategies in High School Students - Differences With Respect to Age and Type of Secondary School

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the level of development of learning strategies in high school students with respect to the age of students and type of high school they attend. We tried to answer the question of whether the years spent in school educate students to strategic approach to learning. The study sample consisted of students of the first and third grade students from three high schools in Tuzla, which are: Gymnasium "Mesa Selimović”, Secondary Commercial School and students of apprenticeships from the Mixed Secondary Technical School, a total of 731 students. Instruments used in this research are Scaler Learning Strategies (SUS) from 2009, by Nenad Suzić. The results showed that 85% of students while learning do not to use any strategy, and that first-grade students had a significantly higher level of development of learning strategies in relation to students of the third grade. This data is not encouraging and tells us that schools put little work into educating students to strategic approach to learning. The study found that answers of students with regard to the type of high school differ significantly on the general score of the SUS-scaler and all its subtests. Based on the arithmetic mean heights, it was found that students of apprenticeships achieved significantly lower values on the general score of the SUS-scaler compared to students of Gymnasium and Secondary Commercial School. Key words: learning strategies, high school students, learning to learn, type of high school.