TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ruffing, Stephanie
A1  - Wach, Franziska-Sophie
A1  - Spinath, Frank M.
A1  - Brünken, Roland
A1  - Karbach, Julia
T1  - Learning strategies and general cognitive ability as predictors of gender- specific academic achievement
T2  - Frontiers in psychology
N2  - Recent research has revealed that learning behavior is associated with academic achievement at the college level, but the impact of specific learning strategies on academic success as well as gender differences therein are still not clear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in the incremental contribution of learning strategies over general cognitive ability in the prediction of academic achievement. The relationship between these variables was examined by correlation analyses. A set of t-tests was used to test for gender differences in learning strategies, whereas structural equation modeling as well as multi-group analyses were applied to investigate the incremental contribution of learning strategies for male and female students’ academic performance. The sample consisted of 461 students (mean age = 21.2 years, SD = 3.2). Correlation analyses revealed that general cognitive ability as well as the learning strategies effort, attention, and learning environment were positively correlated with academic achievement. Gender differences were found in the reported application of many learning strategies. Importantly, the prediction of achievement in structural equation modeling revealed that only effort explained incremental variance (10%) over general cognitive ability. Results of multi-group analyses showed no gender differences in this prediction model. This finding provides further knowledge regarding gender differences in learning research and the specific role of learning strategies for academic achievement. The incremental assessment of learning strategy use as well as gender-differences in their predictive value contributes to the understanding and improvement of successful academic development.
KW  - academic achievement
KW  - learning strategies
KW  - gender differences
KW  - general cognitive ability
KW  - multi-group analyses
Y1  - 2015
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/51544
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-515445
N1  - Copyright © 2015 Ruffing, Wach, Spinath, Brünken and Karbach. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
VL  - 6
IS  - 1238
ER  -