Page 132 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

Summers, & Miller, 2012). Learning strategies or approaches describe how students
learn; they also provide good indicators of the quality of students’ engagement
while learning, i.e., how much mental e ort a student devotes to learning
activities. Greene and Miller (1996) distinguished shallow cognitive engagement,
such as surface learning, and meaningful cognitive engagement, such as a deep
learning approach and self-regulated learning. Research speci cally highlights
the importance of meaningful cognitive engagement explaining achievement,
speci cally in the form of self-regulated strategies and a deep learning approach
(Richardson, Abraham, & Bond, 2012). e use of metacognitive and self-
regulated learning approaches is important in university education, where
less external regulation exists. Metacognition makes a unique contribution to
explaining academic achievement (e.g., Veenman, Kok, & Blöte, 2005), and
research on time management – an important element of self-regulated learning –
revealed its consistent relationship with academic achievement (Britton & Tesser,
1991; Macan, Shahani, Dipboye, & Phillips, 1990). In contrast with studies of
these self-regulated learning strategies, research into the relationship of surface 5 (e.g., rehearsal, memorisation) and deep (e.g., elaboration, critical thinking,
integrating) learning approaches with achievement is somewhat equivocal. e use of deep learning approaches contributes to better achievement (Furnham, Monsen, & Ahmetoglu, 2009; Lau, Liem, & Nie, 2008), though some studies (Busato, Prins, Elshout, & Hamaker, 1998; Cassidy & Eachus, 2000) indicated that deep learning does not in uence academic achievement, because working hard and conscientiously is su cient, regardless of the type of learning strategy applied. is ambiguity might arise from di erences in learning environments and their demands (e.g., examination requirements), which determine whether a speci c learning strategy is e ective. Regardless of environmental circumstances, however, substantial research relates the likelihood that people use certain learning strategies to durable personality di erences.
5.2.3 Intellectual engagement
Intellectual engagement is the third engagement dimension we focused upon in this study. It refers to the extent to which a person engages in intellectual activities (Woo, Harms, & Kuncel, 2007). A construct capable of measuring intellectual engagement is need for cognition, which Cacioppo, Petty, and Kao (1984), p. 306) de ned as “an individual’s tendency to engage in and enjoy e ortful cognitive endeavours”. In an overview of need for cognition research, Cacioppo,
Pro les of student engagement
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