Differences Among Low‐, Average‐ and High‐achieving College Students on Learning and Study Strategies

Abstract

The purpose of the present investigation is to examine the differences between low‐, average‐ and high‐achieving college students on the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory scales. A total of 168 undergraduate students at the United Arab Emirates University participated as subjects. Subjects were classified into three achieving groups based on their grade point average (GPA) scores. Analysis of variance procedures indicated that low‐achieving students scored significantly lower than the average‐ and high‐achieving students on all of the scales. However, no significant differences were observed between the average‐ and high‐achieving groups on any of the scales. Furthermore, a stepwise discriminant analysis revealed that Motivation was the most powerful discriminating factor that separated low‐achieving students from their high‐achieving peers.