Content area
Abstract
The object of this research project is to determine whether learning strategies of first year students in different faculties and whether these differences also apply to male and female students and also different language groups.
The research comprises of two parts. The first is a literature study defining the concept "learning strategies" and discussing the nature, origin and development of learning strategies. This is followed by a discussion of the impact of learning strategies at university. The second part is an empirical study on differences in learning strategies between sexes, language groups and faculties.
It is evident from the literature that learning strategies is a complex concept defying a single definition. Learning strategies consists of skills of self-management that the learner acquires, presumably over a period of years, to govern his own processes of attending, learning, and thinking. By acquiring and refining such strategies, the student becomes an increasingly skillful independent learner and independent thinker.
Researchers agree that the learning strategies that a student has, is one of the factors that has a influence on a successful university career. Because little attention is given in school to the acquiring of effective learning strategies, it is assumed that most first year students don't have effective learning strategies. The possibility exists that these students may underachieve or may even fail. Early identification of these students can help to eliminate the failure rate of first year students by providing and helping them acquire appropriate learning strategies.
The empirical investigation made use of information gathered from 1 184 first year students at the Rand Afrikaans University during the first week of registration in 1990. The following faculties were taken into consideration: Law, Commerce, Social Sciences, Science and Engineering. The Lassi (Learning and study strategy Inventory), was used as measure.
The information obtained was processed with (statistical Package for Social Sciences) (Biomedical Computer Programs) computer statistical techniques employed to interpret consisted of the Student's t-test, T2 test of Hotelling, Manova, Anova en Scheffe tests.
The following results were derived from the empirical study:
* there is a noticeable difference in learning strategies between male and female students;
* there is a less noticeable difference in learning strategies between students speaking Afrikaans and students speaking another language;
* with regard to the different faculties, there is found to be no noticeable difference in learning strategies between the different faculties.
The research project learning strategies as stresses the importance of a variable in the university career of a student. It also stresses the fact that learning strategy researchers should not design specialized stilettos to achieve a single precise effect and who is then ill at ease' in speculating on other uses or misuses to which the research findings might be applied. Practitioners are forced by the magnitude of their needs and the urgency of action to employ broadswords rather than stilettos.
