Learning Strategies

Introduction

Students differ in the approach they take to learning and in the cognitive processes they engage in when performing academic tasks, and these differences are of interest because they correlate with differences in the quality of academic outcome. The basic idea is to identify the features of more successful learning as well as the best ways to develop them. There has been much confusion and different meanings associated with the term learning strategies (LS) as well as different terms to describe similar processes. This discussion will take as a starting point the arguments of van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) regarding strategies of discourse comprehension. According to them, a strategy is ‘the idea of an agent about the way to act in order to reach a goal (in the most effective way)’ (p. 64), or, in other words, ‘… a global representation of the means of reaching (a) goal. This overall means will dominate a number of lower level, more detailed decisions and actions’ (p. 65). It is not a detailed planning, since sequences of actions, complex informations and circumstances interact to produce a given result, but ‘merely a global instruction for such necessary choice to be made along the path of the course of action’ (p. 65). Related to strategies, and contrasted to mere actions, they describe a move as ‘any action that is accomplished with the intention of bringing about a state of affairs that … will (probably) lead to a desired goal’ (p. 66). Thus, ‘a strategy is defined as a cognitive unit dominating only the moves of an action sequence and not each action’ (p. 66). It is also interesting to keep in mind that in ‘complex problems part of these strategies may be consciously intended and, yet, part of them will also be more or less automatized’ (p. 70). Finally, they describe a tactic as a system of strategies.

In the field of LS, two sources of differences among students can be distinguished which might be understood in the light of these concepts. Approaches to learning dominate, give meaning and a style to most of the activities a student carries out; in terms of the above discussion, they might be taken as tactics students may adopt when learning. On the other hand, [Page 559]strategies have to do with more discrete, yet complex activities such as the way they address an academic reading or set out to write an essay.

The goals students with opposing approaches pursue in learning differ in important ways; students with a deep approach try to learn and to change their perception of reality, while those with a surface approach try to comply with academic demands, pass exams or take learning as a means to get a better job. Approaches to learning have been documented to be related to teachers' practices (see entry on ‘Instructional Strategies’) and to correlate with different ways of performing academic tasks and with outcomes measured in various ways (Ramsden, 1992). They act at the intentional level and permeate lower level strategies. Approaches to learning have been summarized (Ramsden, 1992) as shown in Table 1.

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