ABSTRACT
Promoting effective learning strategy use is an important educational issue. Research studies have shown that deep-processing strategies lead to better academic performance than shallower strategies. However, students in reality encounter various types of learning demands, some of which do not necessarily require deep processing. Thus, it is worth examining whether students metacognitively adapt their strategy use to meet such demands. Here we show (i) the extent to which students adapt their use of deep/shallow strategies depending on learning demands, and (ii) how such adaptation relates to their test performance. Three hundred and four 8th- and 9th-grade students were asked to learn English vocabulary words and to report the strategies they used for each specified learning component (i.e. learning spelling/pronunciation, definition, and usage). Students then took a vocabulary test. Cluster analysis showed that there were roughly three types of learning approaches: learners who adapted their use of deep/shallow learning strategies to the task demands, ones who held fast to using deep or shallow strategies, and ones who did not use strategies in a metacognitive way. ANOVA showed that the ones who used various strategies in an adaptive way got higher scores than the others, in this case because the test itself was comprised of components requiring both deep and shallow processing. This finding suggests that in advising students about strategy use, it is important to consider the learning demands of tasks we assign, rather than just emphasising the importance of deep-processing strategy use. The findings indicate the importance of metacognition in strategy use for effective learning performance.
