Learning Approaches in Dental Students: An Instrumental and Profiles Analysis

MENDEL, N.; MOTTA, F.; SCHEINSOHN, C.; FREIBERG HOFFMANN, A.

Psychological Thought

University Publishing House "Neofit Rilski"

Año: 2024 vol. 17 p. 431 - 449

2193-7281

Students´ learning approaches are described asdifferent modes, procedures, or strategies that students use to process theinformation they need to learn. This paper analyzes the learning approaches instudents of Dentistry using the Revised Two Factor Study Process Questionnaire(R-SPQ-2F). It is proposed, on the one hand, to analyze the internal structureof the instrument, and on the other, to examine approaches to students andtheir relationship to academic performance. 752 dental students participated.As a result, adequate evidence of the instrument´s internal validity wasobtained -confirmatory factor analysis, internal consistency, and factorialinvariance analysis-. Besides, a latent profile analysis obtained two learningapproach profiles. One profile, with a deep approach over the surface, and theother, with similar levels of both. Then an analysis of average differencesfound that students who mostly employ the deep approach have higher academicperformance than those with similar levels of both approaches. These resultsshow that while it is important to promote the adoption of the deep approach instudents, it is necessary to consider both -deep and surface-, as they are notexclusive. Although learning approaches are measured independently, in practicestudents combine features of both by forming their learning profiles.