Learning styles and strategies: The importance of the tool selection

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the learning styles and strategies, while highlighting the diversity of tools and the different results obtained with each of them. With regard to styles, there are more than 70 different tools, but not all of them have a similar exploratory orientation. Some of those studied by us are the CHAEA (Spanish Acronym of the Questionnaire Honey and Alonso Learning Styles), of Alonso, Domingo and Honey, and the ILS (Index of Learning Styles) of Felder and Silverman. CHAEA and ILS provide conflicting results regarding the active and reflective styles in the same students. Therefore, a new tool is proposed to solve these problems and to operate for improvement in those constructs that have a poor score. Something similar happens with the learning strategies given the disparity existing in the name of the strategies and than the cognitive in the tools used for their exploration. We recommend, first at all, to analyze the metacognitive strategies and then the cognitive ones, although it may also have information in these last ones regarding metacognitive and socio-affective strategies. The value of the ESEAC-Spanish Acronym of Contextualized Learning Strategies Scale-is emphasized based on the act and on behavior and not on the statements of the students. This represents a decisive contribution, although the difficulty of working with this tool without prior preparation is recognized.