Learning Strategies

WHERE THERE’S SKILL AND A WILL, THERE’S A WAY!

We can certainly learn a lot from highly intelligent dogs… and that is, dogged determination. One day, in 2006, Belle, who was a beagle dog, watched as her owner went into a diabetic seizure. She kept pawing him and licking and sniffing his nose in an effort to keep him conscious and with her. When he finally lapsed into unconsciousness, she resorted to calling someone else for help. She went to the telephone and used her teeth to press the number nine key (which had been programmed as a ‘911’ call to Emergency Services). When the call was picked up by the ambulance personnel, she barked and barked until the astute Emergency Crew arrived at the door.

Have you ever heard of LASSI?

No, no….  I’m not talking about the world famous fictional TV show dog, Lassie.   The LASSI, to which I am referring, is a Learning And Study Strategies Inventory of students’ overt and covert thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours which affect the way they learn and study and which may be altered if desired. It was developed at the University of Texas by Claire E. Weinstein, Ann C. Schulte, and David R. Palmer in relation to the learning and study habits of college students.

This 80-question assessment test focuses on three aspects strategic to successful learning: skill, will, and self-regulation. The latter, self-regulation, is what I call the ‘way’. Eight questions of this test are directed to each of the ten, what they call, LASSI scales:

1. Skill component: information processing scale, selecting main ideas scale, test strategies scale
2. Will component: anxiety, attitude, motivation scales
3. Way component: the scales of concentration, self testing, study aids, and time management.

Although there is some overlap and interaction among and between the components and the individual scales, each of them makes a difference in the outcome of one’s learning endeavours.

As with any statistical measurement, especially those based on self-evaluation, it is important to address the issue of reliability of the scale data. One of the most common indexes of reliability of a sum scale is Cronbach's coefficient alpha. In short, if all items are perfectly reliable and measure the same thing (true score), then the coefficient alpha is equal to 1. It should be noted that the coefficient alphas for the LASSI scales range from a low of .73 to a high of. 89. Therefore, they are reasonably to quite reliable.

Last Updated by SAS October 07, 2026, 16:00:34