Learning strategies and general cognitive ability as predictors of gender- specific academic achievement.

Stephanie Ruffing,F -Sophie Wach,Frank M Spinath,Julia Karbach,Roland Brünken

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01238

Stephanie Ruffing, F -Sophie Wach + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01238

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Abstract

Recent research has revealed that learning behavior is associated with academic achievement at the college level, but the impact of specific learning strategies on academic success as well as gender differences therein are still not clear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in the incremental contribution of learning strategies over general cognitive ability in the prediction of academic achievement. The relationship between these variables was examined by correlation analyses. A set of t-tests was used to test for gender differences in learning strategies, whereas structural equation modeling as well as multi-group analyses were applied to investigate the incremental contribution of learning strategies for male and female students’ academic performance. The sample consisted of 461 students (mean age = 21.2 years, SD = 3.2). Correlation analyses revealed that general cognitive ability as well as the learning strategies effort, attention, and learning environment were positively correlated with academic achievement. Gender differences were found in the reported application of many learning strategies. Importantly, the prediction of achievement in structural equation modeling revealed that only effort explained incremental variance (10%) over general cognitive ability. Results of multi-group analyses showed no gender differences in this prediction model. This finding provides further knowledge regarding gender differences in learning research and the specific role of learning strategies for academic achievement. The incremental assessment of learning strategy use as well as gender-differences in their predictive value contributes to the understanding and improvement of successful academic development.

Highlights

A great deal of research has focused on the explanation and prediction of academic performance (AP), because it is of high social and individual interest (Spinath, 2012)
Given that recent literature pointed to the importance of self-regulated learning for AP, the present study focused on one specific aspect of self-regulated learning, namely the role of learning strategies for individual differences in college students’ AP
We found that effort (r = 0.26, p < 0.01), attention (r = 0.25, p < 0.01), and learning environment (r = 0.11, p < 0.05) were positively related to academic achievement

Summary

Introduction

A great deal of research has focused on the explanation and prediction of academic performance (AP), because it is of high social and individual interest (Spinath, 2012). The impact of general cognitive ability, which belongs to the category of cognitive determinants of AP, is well documented throughout previous research (e.g., Kuncel et al, 2004; Rohde and Thompson, 2007) indicating that it is the most powerful single predictor of academic achievement (e.g., Spinath et al, 2006). General cognitive ability is considered relatively stable (Gottfredson, 2002) and given that a main interest in education is the understanding and the improvement of achievement processes (Spinath et al, 2006), there is a high interest in more changeable determinants of AP

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