Learning strategies in secondary school: a comparative study of the use between spanish and immigrant students

Abstract

The aim of this work is to know the use that students do of the learning strategies, seeing there are differences according to the national origin. To this end, it was applied the Learning Strategies Questionnaire (CEA) to 70 students –37 Spanish and 33 immigrants– of 1st and 4th grade of Secondary School from four different centers, publics and privates, located in Lugo (Galicia). For the statistic analysis we used the SPSS 15.0 program. Our results indicate that the students –Spanish and immigrants– show an adequate level in their use of the learning strategies, without significative differences registered in both groups. However, significative differences were found according to the gender. Specifically in the emotional control subscale, where the Spanish boys obtained a higher punctuation than immigrants. Moreover, if we consider the grade, we see that Spanish students of 1st grade achieve higher punctuations in the sensitization scale and emotional control subscale than immigrant boys of the same grade. On the other hand, although the immigrant students of 4th –males– obtain lower punctuations in the organization and transference subscales than their classmates of 1st grade, showing a greater emotional control.