Abstract

Background: One of the goals of medical education should be not only to provide basic knowledge and skills but also to train physicians who have self-regulation skills of their own learning considered to be a life-long learning skill. Students with self-regulation skills can control the learning process and make necessary arrangements by using cognitive and metacognitive strategies. There is an obvious relationship between self-regulated learning and concepts of metacognition, learning strategies and motivation. Learning strategies can be learned and taught. Education provided in this area is reported to increase students' knowledge and implementation of learning strategies and to have positive effects on their motivation and performance. The study aims to investigate the relationship between metacognitive awareness and learning strategies training on the implementation of learning strategies. Methods: The study population comprised 315 first-year students studying at Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Medicine in the 2012-2013 academic year. In the study, the students had the training on learning strategies after they were administered the Learning Strategies Inventory as the pretest in January 2013. Descriptive variables and Metacognitive Awareness Inventory were also implemented during the pretest. The Learning Strategies Scale was administered as the posttest in May 2013. Results: Eighty-four students who responded the questions in the pretest and posttest, and participated in the learning strategies training comprised the study sample. In this study, the mean posttest scores for the overall Learning Strategies Inventory and its social-kinesthetic strategies and elaboration strategies subscales were found to be significantly higher than those of the pretest. A weak positive relationship was found between the mean scores obtained from the repetition strategies and metacognitive awareness levels. Conclusion: It is thought that there is a relationship between learning strategies training and implementation of learning strategies, and that training to be conducted on this issue can contribute to the implementation of the strategies.

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