Personal learning barriers in high school students

Abstract

This article stems from a project that sought to identify the personal factors that constitute barriers to learning for high school students. It was developed from the quantitative paradigm, with a correlational scope. The sample was made up of 2669 first-year students from the Public High Schools subsystem in Yucatan, Mexico. For the collection of information, a Likert scale instrument was constructed that investigated the factors Self-concept, Expectations, Reflective thinking and Leaning Strategies. The identification of those that constitute barriers to learning was done by correlating the respective indicators with academic performance through Pearson's coefficient. The importance of these on learning was determined by calculating the regression model by the Stepwise method; the importance indicators being the standardized regression coefficients. The discriminant analysis technique was used to determine whether the studied factors had a joint effect on learning. The results highlight the importance of self-concept, learning strategies and reflective thinking for learning, the latter two being indispensable inputs to meet the demands of the curricular contents and thus implying the need to make a curricular proposal that contemplates its development.