Learning Strategies Used by Urban and Rural School Students in Mathematics

Abstract

The paper attempts to find out the difference in preferred learning strategies in mathematics between urban and rural school students in Nepal. The study was conducted in 1394 grade IX students through multistage sampling procedure throughout the country. Among them, 987 students were from urban schools, and 407 students were from rural schools. The researcher adopted mix method-sequential explanatory design. The study was based on taxonomy of learning strategies developed by Pintrich, Smith and McKeachie (1989). The tools for the data collection were Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), observation and interview. The study shows that there is significant difference in preferred learning strategies of urban and rural school students. There was a significant difference in the use of mathematics learning strategies between urban and rural school students. Elaboration and organization strategies were more often used by rural students than urban school students whereas peer learning, elaboration, help seeking and effort management strategies were more often used by urban school students. However, students from both of the locations mostly used peer learning and elaboration learning strategies.