Effects of college students' learning styles and gender on their test preparation strategies

This study investigated the effects of approach to studying, gender and type of examination on test preparation strategies. Educational psychology students completed the Approaches to Studying Inventory (Entwistle and Ramsden, 1983) regarding their general learning characteristics, and thus were assigned to four approach groups. Students also answered questions about how they might study for either an essay or a multiple‐choice examination. Factor analysis of those items yielded several study strategy subscales. When scores on the time‐effort, integration, selection and cognitive monitoring subscales were used as dependent variables in a 4×2×2 (cluster × gender × type of test) MANCOVA, a significant three‐way interaction suggested that male and female students using different approaches react differently to multiple‐choice or essay tests, and the patterns differ by strategy.