This research validates the University Learning Strategy Scale (EEA) used by Martins and Zerbini (2014), among Business and Management students of semi-presential courses. The sample had 350 observations obtained from students of a Higher Education Institution based in the State of São Paulo. Preliminary results showed that although the Learning Strategies Scale (LES) was developed and validated in a hybrid context application, in this research it was applied to the semi-present context and its results were satisfactory, presenting high internal consistency indices, with alphas of Cronbach's of (α = 0.94) for the general scale. Regarding the four dimensions, the result was also very close to the LES with 1) (α = 0.92) for the Cognitive Strategies construct, 2) (α = 0.77) for Emotion Control, 3) (α = 0.85) for Self-Regulatory Strategies and 4) (α = 0, 83) for Interpersonal Help. This scale shows evidence of instrument validity.
TopIntroduction
Brazilian university education has undergone major changes in the last 20 years. According to data from the Ministry of Education (MEC/INEP, 2000), in 1997 there were 900 Brazilian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Brazil, offering 6.132 courses and serving almost two million students. Recent data from the same institute (MEC/INEP, 2017) indicate that, in 2016, there would be 2,407 HEIs, offering about 34,440 courses, with approximately eight million students enrolled. A 167% increase in the number of HEIs, 461% in the number of courses and 300% in the number of enrollments, such transformation has brought the university the challenge of dealing not only with infrastructure expansion but also with an increasingly heterogeneous context of students, with diverse interests, motivations, skills and expectations (Zabalza, 2004).
Faced with so many transformations, one of the main concerns about HEIs and, consequently, about those who work in them, is that many of these students who access universities today show that they are not sufficiently prepared for academic life, where the high quantity Information to be learned concur with the short time available for studies, leading to a large number of dropouts in the initial semesters. It is for this reason that, given the provisions of Decree No. 5,773 of May 9, 2006 (BRAZIL, 2006), the Institutional Development Plan (IDP) of all HEIs in the country should be in accordance with Thematic Axis VI, the item: Policies for Permanence, which are expected, among other actions to support the student, the leveling.
Leveling actions represent an important step in adapting these students to the university context, however, it is important to emphasize that educational action should not be limited to the simple absorption of content or certain knowledge products, but also to foster the processes by which such products can be produced (Pozo, 1996) which means moving towards the improvement of cognitive and metacognitive aspects, having as a starting point the learning strategies.
Learning Strategies are integrated sequences of procedures or activities that the individual chooses to facilitate the acquisition, storage and/or retrieval of information or knowledge (Bartalo & Guimarães, 2008; Pozo, 1996) whose domain and proper use. promotes deep processing of information, surpassing the forms of surface processing (Bartalo, 2006; Bartalo & Guimarães, 2008; Boruchovitch, Santos Costa, Neves, Cruvinel, Primi & Guimarães, 2006).
Research has shown that learning strategies play an important role in the self-regulatory process, positively related to the quality of learning (Flavell, 1999; Galvão, Câmara, & Jordão, 2012; Pozo, 1996), with academic performance and that, their learning aiming at building the student's autonomy and awareness about learning processes, although it is a long-term investment, is possible and consistent with educational limits (Pressley, Borkwski, & Schneider, 1989).
Aiming to contribute to the improvement of the learning strategies measurement instrument, this research seeks to validate the Learning Strategies Scale (Martins & Zerbini, 2014) among business and university students from a HEI in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, which offers disciplines in the semi-presential model.
After this introduction, this report presents, in its second part, the theoretical basis on which the study of learning strategies is based; in the third part, the methodological aspects from the sample composition to the definitions of the statistical tests and their parameters; In the fourth part, the preliminary results and discussions of the results, while in the fifth part, considerations are made about the findings, highlighting their limitations and proposing further studies.