Learning Strategies in Vocational Technical Education

Abstract

This research focuses on the adaptation of the validated scale of Learning Strategies, aimed at primary school, so that it would enable raising factorial validity evidence for its use in professional technical education. We also sought to assess the learning strategies employed by these students. 709 students participated in the vocational technical education from a private institution and other of federal government. Through the results, it was possible to demonstrate the validity of the instrument that confirmed the three-factor structure in the exploratory factor analysis, pointed out in previous studies. The Cronbach alphas for the whole scale (.74), subscales Lack of Learning Strategies (.77) and Cognitive Strategies (.73) were acceptable except for the Metacognitive Strategies subscale (.57). The study also found that a significant proportion of students reported use of learning strategies, especially the use of cognitive strategies. The data were discussed in the light of psych educational implications.

Keywords:
factor analysis; professional technical education, learning, cognitive learning strategies, metacognitive learning strategies