Students' attitudes towards studying

Abstract

This paper is a partial report of a wider study about freshmen students in high school education which main purpose was to identify several variables associated with academic achievement within the framework of a new curricular approach based on competencies. One of the particular aims for this work was to validate the scale of attitudes towards the study. This scale was designed specifically for the purpose of this research, and its results indicate that it is in fact a valid and reliable instrument. This paper contains only the report of two variables which are: 1) student’s attitude towards the study and 2) some student’s practices related to schoolwork. The theoretical model used to measure attitudes was one that postulates three components: cognitive, emotional and behavioral. The findings indicate that, in general, the participant students show favorable attitudes toward the study; students do have study habits and also know how to use study strategies that favor particularly memorization.