Exploring factors predicting undergraduate healthcare students' use of learning strategies

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between students' academic motivation, implicit beliefs about intelligence and learning strategies among undergraduate healthcare students. First-year students of healthcare degree courses from a university in Southern Italy were surveyed. The study measured psychological constructs by means of Academic Motivation Scale, Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire, and Dweck's implicit questions about beliefs of intelligence. Two regression models were computed to assess the association between students' beliefs about intelligence, motivations for studying, and learning strategies. In the first regression model, predicting students' use of cognitive strategies from implicit intelligence beliefs and motivations for studying, stronger autonomous motivations were significant predictors of cognitive strategies. The second regression model, predicting students' use of metacognitive strategies from implicit intelligence beliefs and motivations for studying, was not significant. These findings can be useful to plan tailored educational interventions to promote students' motivation, incremental beliefs about intelligence and their use of learning strategies positively related with academic performance.