Developing and assessing the ‘Learning to Learn’ competence

Abstract

Learning to learn (LtL) competence is related to the ability to initiate, organise and plan one’s own learning autonomously. With the aim of measuring the progress of the level of mastery of the components of the LtL competence in its socio-relational dimension, the responses of 1,320 students in the first cycle of Compulsory Secondary Education from 14 innovative educational centres in Catalonia to a questionnaire applied in two phases (PRE and POST) were subjected to a quantitative analysis. The results show that students who have been involved in interdisciplinary work proposals improve in LtL components related to autonomy, self-management, resources used in the learning process, commitment to group work, evaluation and motivation/interest, and identify significant differences, depending on variables such as gender and academic year, in the perception of the level of mastery of the ‘group work’ components analysed. The general improvement of these indicators of LtL competence, although key to its progress, must continue to focus on the ‘group work’ components because of their relevance to the construction of learning itself and therefore to the development of LtL competence.