Psychology, cognition and school success: validation of the learning strategies program / Psicologia, cognição e sucesso escolar: concepção e validação dum programa de estratégias de aprendizagem

This article presents a Learning Strategies Program developed to provide academic success as well as personal well-being. Each content of learning is based on a strategy with 8 stages: Pre-test and Contract, Description, Modeling, Verbal Practice, Practice and Feedback Control, Advanced Practice and Feedback, Post-test and Contracts, and Generalization. This is a quasi-experimental design, with pre and post-test, an experimental group (n=110) and a control group (n=99). Its application was assessed on (a) reading and writing; (b) school achievement; (c) self-esteem and study methods; (c) school achievement causal attributions and, (e) opinion of the teachers. The EG improved significantly compared to the CG indicating that such Program can bring not only school performance benefits but also personal ones for Portuguese students.