Studying in higher education: students' approaches to learning, self‐regulation, and cognitive strategies

Abstract

The authors looked at aspects of successful and problematic studying in terms of three different research traditions: students’ approaches to learning, self‐regulated learning and cognitive strategies. These frameworks have been widely applied when explaining university student learning. However, relations among different traditions have not been sufficiently looked at. In this study the authors explored the relations between learning approaches, regulation of learning and cognitive strategies. The subjects were students at the University of Helsinki who filled in the Task Booklet of Learning and the Strategy and Attribution Questionnaire. Their academic achievement was coded from university archives. It was found that approaches to learning, regulation of learning, and cognitive strategies were related to each other, and further, to study success.

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to Juha Nieminen and two anonymous reviewers for inspiring and helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

The preparation of this article was supported by a Finnish Cultural Foundation grant to Annamari Heikkilä. This study is part of the Life as Learning – Program of the Finnish Academy (project number 200012).