Levels Of Strategy Use Research Articles

Language Learning Strategies and Language Proficiency: Investigating the Relationship in Hong Kong

This article reports on a survey of the language learning strategies used by a group of Hong Kong learners. The aims of the study were to investigate levels of strategy use among the group, and to examine levels of association between strategy use and language proficiency. The SILL questionnaire (Strategies Inventory of Language Learning) by Oxford (1990, pp. 293-300) was used. SILL consists of six categories of strategies: memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social. The results showed that compensation and metacognitive strategies were the most used, while affective and memory strategies were the least used. Previous examinations of the nature of the relationship between strategy use and proficiency, and ways of measuring this are discussed. In this study, it was found that there was significant variation in proficiency in relation to eleven out of a possible fifty strategies. Of these, nine were in the cognitive category, one in the compensation category, and one in the social category. The article concludes by questioning the appropriateness of using the SILL and proficiency measure in tandem as a way of establishing a clear relationship between strategy use and proficiency, and suggests directions that might be pursued in language learning strategy research.

Differences in Benefit from Strategy Use: What's Good for Me May Not Be So Good for Thee

The present study explored group differences in the relationship between strategy use and text recall. Academically bright and average elementary school-aged children were trained in the use of elaborative interrogation (a reading-comprehension strategy). Gifted children had greater recall than did average children prior to and one week after training, despite equivalent levels of strategy use. Correlational evidence indicated that average children eventually benefitted from using the strategy, while for gifted children strategy use did not correlate with recall at any point. It is suggested that gifted children, because they seem to have superior nonstrategic memories, may require more difficult tasks than average children in order to acquire and use memory strategies and that an optimal level of strategy use may differ as a function of one's cognitive abilities.

The development of strategic memory: A modified microgenetic assessment of utilization deficiencies

Second-, third-, and fourth-grade children performed a multitrial sort-recall task, using different sets of stimulus items on each trial. Children were classified as utilizationally deficient if measures of sorting and/or clustering were initially below chance but increased over trials without a corresponding increase in recall. Children were classified as quasiutilizationally deficient if initial levels of strategy use were greater than expected by chance and increased over trials without concomitant increases in recall. More second and third graders were classified as utilizationally deficient than fourth graders, who were more likely to be classified as quasiutilizationally deficient than the younger children. Levels of recall and clustering were higher for second- and third-grade utilizationally deficient than for nonutilizationally deficient children, with this pattern being reversed for the fourth graders. Strategy classification was not predicted by measures of intelligence or metamemory. The results were discussed in terms of Miller's (1990) model of strategy development.

A Closer Look at Learning Strategies, L2 Proficiency, and Gender

This study builds on previous research using the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). Most previous SILL research has made comparisons across the entire survey or in terms of strategy categories and has stressed proficiency level at the expense of other variables. The present largescale (N = 374) study of language learning strategy use by students at three different course levels at the University of Puerto Rico relates strategy use to gender as well as to L2 proficiency level and includes analysis of variation in the use of individual strategies on the SILL. Like previous researchers, we found greater use of learning strategies among more successful learners and higher levels of strategy use by women than by men. Our analysis, however, revealed more complex patterns of use than have appeared in previous studies. With both proficiency level and gender, only some items showed significant variation, and significant variation by proficiency level did not invariably mean more frequent strategy use by more successful students. The strategies reported as used more often by the more successful students emphasized active, naturalistic practice and were used in combination with a variety of what we term bedrock strategies, which were used frequently or moderately frequently by learners at all levels. The study's generalizability and its implications for teachers and researchers are discussed.

Mapping solutions to an early multiplication word problem

Children’s solutions to a variety of multiplication and division word problems were analysed in a cross-sectional pilot study of 34 children from Grades K to 2. Responses indicated a wide range of strategies used and these were further classified into developmental levels of strategy use. Because these data reflected the SOLO Taxonomy developmental model for classifying responses, a SOLO mapping procedure was used for further analysis. In this paper, the mapping procedure is applied to only one multiplication problem strategy, repeated addition, to exemplify the procedure. The mapping device employed in the analysis isolated three components of the problem-solving procedure: the cues given by the problem, the concepts and processes used by the children, and the responses given by the children. Responses to mathematical problems from children in this age group have not previously been used to elucidate the earlier modes of functioning in the SOLO Taxonomy. In particular this paper considers the Ikonic mode and the transition into the concrete Symbolic mode.

Learning to Solve a Problem

Ten subjects with learning disabilities and 10 normally achieving subjects, aged 10-5 to 12-5 years, were videotaped while attempting to solve the Tower of Hanoi problem (see Karat, 1982; Piaget, 1976; Simon, 1975). A microanalysis of their problem-solving activities provided a descriptive taxonomy used to analyze what, in fact, individual subjects did when constructing a solution strategy, and to categorize and compare changes in strategy. The results indicated that as a group the normally achieving subjects reached more sophisticated levels of strategy use (p less than .05). However, if the focus of the comparison is on an analysis of how learning proceeded in individuals, then the subjects with learning disabilities appear to be similar to the normally achieving subjects. There was no evidence in these subjects of the popular conception that individuals with learning disabilities are inactive, passive, or maladaptive in their attempts to learn to solve a problem.

Is Minimal Strategy Instruction Sufficient for LD Children? -Testing the Production Deficiency Hypothesis

To test a production deficiency view of learning disabilities, the performance of learning disabled and normally achieving children given minimal instruction to use organizing strategies was compared to the performance of students engaged only in practice with a free recall task. Groups were selected as having equivalent pretest recall. On a posttest where strategy use was not prompted, the instructed group showed higher levels of strategy use than the control group. No differences were found between learning disabled and normally achieving subjects' strategy use. The instructed group recalled more than the control group. In contrast to predictions based on a production deficiency hypothesis, learning disabled groups recalled less than the normally achieving group. Factors that may have contributed to this finding are discussed.