This master’s thesis discusses the topic of metacognitive and affective learning strategies of Spanish Language students. In the theoretical part, the concept of learning is defined, especially cognitive and constructivist views on learning and active learning. Additionally, competences acquired by students while studying Spanish Language and Literature are presented. The main part addresses metacognition and self-regulated learning and defines the differences between the two mentioned processes. In the last section of the theoretical part, we concentrated on the classification of learning strategies according to Vermunt, Rubin and Oxford and then we compared the classifications with each one. We especially emphasize the role of learning strategies in the process of learning a foreign language.
In the empirical part of the master 's thesis we present the results of quantitative research carried out through a self-evaluation questionnaire of students in the first and third year of the undergraduate studies and students in the second year of the postgraduate studies of Spanish studies at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana in the study year of 2021/2022. We investigated how students perceive learning and found that the majority of students perceive learning as acquiring and memorizing knowledge and acquiring useful knowledge, that most metacognitive and affective learning strategies are used by students often or occasionally, according to their own assessment. We found that there is a statistically significant weak positive correlation between the frequency of use of metacognitive and affective learning strategies and that, depending on the year and level of study, students differ in the frequency of use of only some metacognitive and affective learning strategies. It was found that there is a statistically significant positive weak correlation between students' average grades and frequency of use of affective learning strategies as indicated by the total score. On average, students have a higher average grade in the 2nd year of the postgraduate studies than they had in the 1st year of the undergraduate studies. We also found that there is a statistically significant positive weak correlation between the frequency of correctly predicting the grade obtained in the exam and the use of metacognitive learning strategies.
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