A cross-cultural analysis of the patterns of learning and academic performance of Spanish and Latin-American undergraduates

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse and compare the learning patterns of higher education students from Spain and three Latin-American countries (Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela). For this purpose Vermunt's Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS) was translated into Spanish and tested. The participants were 456 undergraduates enrolled in a teacher education programme who completed the ILS and a set of questions about their academic performance, personal background and university experience. The data were analysed using reliability and factor analyses, analysis of variance and structural equation modelling. The results showed significant differences in mean ILS scores and factor structures between students from different countries. Academic performance was explained to a significant degree by some ILS scales about learning patterns. The results were interpreted within a cross-cultural framework, focusing on differences reported up to date between Latin-American and Spanish students versus Western and Asian students. IntroductionThere is a clear need to learn about the motivational, cognitive, metacognitive and contextual aspects of learning in order to develop, improve and foster students' learning strategies in a specific educational context and domain. In the past 10 years there has been increasing interest in understanding and fostering teaching and learning processes, and recognising how different aspects of learning work together to define the patterns of learning (e.g. Boyle, Duffy and Dunleavy 2003;Maggioni, Riconscente and Alexander 2006;Trigwell and Ashwin 2006;Vermunt 2005). However, there are still few studies tackling the analysis of cultural differences and their impact on the configuration of learning patterns and on their explanation of the academic performance in undergraduates from different countries. This study aims to analyse the patterns of learning in a sample of Latin-American and Spanish undergraduates within a cross-cultural discussion.

The Role of Teacher Regulatory Talk in Students’ Self-Regulation Development Across Cultures

“…Furthermore, in line with recent findings regarding the impossibility of separating other‐regulation and self‐regulation among Latin American cultures (Martínez‐Fernández & Vermunt, ), directive talk was found to have an all‐round negative effect over self‐regulation (monitoring and control) for English students but no effect for Chileans. Of course, a positive effect of directive talk over self‐regulation in Chile would have provided stronger evidence to advance a theory of how cultural collectivism might transform the productive function of directive external regulation from negative to positive over the development of self‐regulation.…”

A Learning Patterns Perspective on Student Learning in Higher Education: State of the Art and Moving Forward

“…Many studies reviewed in this paper have used Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) as an elegant way to deal with a large number of variables at the same time (e.g. De Clercq et al 2013;Loyens et al 2008;Martínez-Fernández and Vermunt 2015;Zhu et al 2008). Fryer et al (2016) used a longitudinal variant of SEM to analyse variables from two waves of data collection from the same students.…”

“…In their study, both meaning-directed learning and reproduction-directed learning showed negative relationships with academic performance. Martínez-Fernández and Vermunt (2015) found in a large-scale study among student teachers in Latin America and Spain that students' use of deep processing strategies and their effort were positively and significantly related to academic performance, while self-regulation strategies turned out to be the best predictor of deep processing. Another aspect of the meaning-directed learning pattern, the learning conception construction of knowledge, also had a direct effect on academic performance in their Structural Equation Model.…”

“…Taking the second approach, performed a meta-analysis on studies with students from Hong Kong (Law and Meyer 2010), Indonesia (Ajisuksmo and Vermunt 1999), Sri Lanka (Marambe et al 2012), Spain, Venezuela, Columbia and Mexico (Martínez-Fernández and Vermunt 2015), and The Netherlands (Vermunt 1998). Together these studies represented eight samples from eight different countries on three continents (Europe, Asia, and America).…”

Exploring conceptions about writing and learning: undergraduates' patterns of beliefs and the quality of academic writing

“…Accordingly, rote learning conception related to worse learning outcome (basic consonance) (Cano, 2005;Martínez-Fernández & Vermunt, 2015;Meyer, 2000;Vermunt & Verloop, 2000;Virtanen & Lindblom-Ylänne, 2010). We think, that there is a relevant cultural explanation for the incongruence between rote learning conception with good learning outcomes; or deep learning conception with worse learning outcomes (Vermunt, Bronkhorst, & Martínez-Fernández, 2014;Zhu, Valcke, & Schellens, 2008).…”