An examination of university students’ learning and studying approaches

Abstract

Students’ learning and studying approaches have positive effect on the quality of learning, academic achievement and performance. The aimof this study was to explore if the students’ learning and studying approaches show significant differences in terms of gender, departmentsand Undergraduate Placement Exam (UPE) scores. The current study was conducted during 2016-2017 academic year with the participationof 56 female and 122 male students of different departments at Yildiz Technical University. Approaches to Learning and Studying Inventory(ALSI), developed by Hounsell, Entwistle, Anderson et al. (2002) and adapted to Turkish by Topyaka, Yaka and Ogretmen (2011) was used toidentify students’ approaches to learning and studying. Data were analyzed using One-Way ANOVA and Independent t-test, and Pearsoncorrelation analysis. According to the findings, it was concluded that there were not any significant differences of university students’approaches to learning and studying such as surface, deep, and strategic approaches in terms of their departments. The results also showedthat there are significant differences between female and male students regarding their departments. Moreover, it was found out that thereis a positive correlation between students’ UPE scores and strategic learning approaches, while there is a negative relation between students’UPE scores and deep learning approaches. Keywords: Studying approaches; learning approaches.