Learning Strategies and Reasoning Skills of University Students // Estrategias de aprendizaje y habilidades de razonamiento de estudiantes universitarios

Abstract

In this research, university students' learning strategies and differences in their use as a function of their performance in a fluid intelligence test, a scientific reasoning task, and a divergent thinking or creativity task are examined, because all of these abilities are involved in knowledge generation, which is one of the key aims of the European Higher Education Area. 150 participants are divided into two groups according to their performance in the tasks, and fill in a questionnaire of learning strategies for university students, Cuestionario de Evaluación de Estrategias de Aprendizaje en Estudiantes Universitarios, which assesses learning strategies organized into six subscales (motivational, affective, metacognitive, context-control strategies, information searching strategies, and information processing strategies). University students with higher levels of fluid and scientific reasoning skills report a greater use of strategies aimed to context control (including social interaction, and resources management), whereas participants with higher levels in the creativity task report a significantly greater use of metacognitive, motivational, and purely cognitive strategies (information searching and processing). Overall, these results show that the usage of learning strategies aimed to support and control information processing, contribute to different reasoning skills, and suggest that the encouragement of social interaction and cooperation among students would promote the development of basic cognitive competencies, like creative thinking and problem-solving abilities, among university learners.