Strategic Learning in Excellent and Average University Students

Abstract

We seek to analyse how the best students on entry to University work in order to transfer their procedures to the rest of the University community. We used the CEVEAPEU questionnaire to assess the learning strategies of a sample of 148 excellent students selected from 11 degrees from 9 centers of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, and we compared the results with those of a sample of 133 average students of the same centers. We found that excellent students used more and better learning strategies than average students. We also found that learning strategies had an influence on their academic achievement. The available data allow us to affirm that professors can enhance the development of learning strategies by using suitable teaching and assessment methodologies. Thus, we think that it is necessary to teach learning strategies to students of first years which help them to achieve the excellence and we also think that professors can do so as well.