Changes in hungarianstudents' learning strategiesfrom the start of school-ing up until entering university

Abstract

In the 21st century, one of the main tasks of education is to prepare students for the rapidly changing labor market challenges. An essential prerequisite for this is effective learning, that is, the use of learning strategies that determine school success and promote lifelong learning. The aim of this large-scale research was to map the developmental changes of elaboration, memorization, control and problem-solving strategies of primary and secondary school students as well as students entering higher education (N=12,465). We were looking for an answer to the question whether age-specific strategy use can be observed, and which learning strategy dominates at what age. Our results showed that students' learning strategies tended to change with age. While younger elementary school students preferred memorization strategies, their role decreased during the years of secondary school. In addition to the learning strategy based on memorization, control strategies started to play an increasingly important role, and the use of problem-solving strategies also increased towards the end of secondary school. There was a strong correlation between learning strategies and instrumental motivation, correlation coefficients got higher for elaboration and memorization strategies with age, while lower but significant values could be obtained for control strategies in lower grades. The strength of the relationship between problem-solving strategies and instrumental motivation was varied. Our results show that learning strategies are useful tools in learning, which can help to achieve future goals, such as getting a good job. However, findings also confirm that more emphasis should be put on effective learning instead of the frequent use of memorization strategies.