Learning how to learn is probably the single most critical learning task for students, yet, teachers typically don’t teach it.  Although study strategies seem critically important, outside academic research circles they’re rarely mentioned.  “Study,” say parents and teachers, and students are left to figure out for themselves how best to do that.

A wide variety of language learning strategy questionnaires have been developed since 1981 (Oxford, 1996), though the most commonly used at this time is the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL: Oxford, 1990).

Many studies suggest conscious use of language study strategies enhances L2 learning, (i.e. Bialystok, 1981, and Yang, 2007), and successful L2 learners use more study strategies and use them more frequently than less successful learners.  These strategies are used before, during and after L2 tasks (Oxford, 1994, and Oxford Cho, Leung, and Kim, 2004).

Oxford (1990) found that many variables influence a learner’s choice of strategy, including motivation, gender, type of task, age, subject matter, level of L2, learning style and cultural background.  Since then, numerous other variables have been identified as having significant influence on the use of study strategies, including IQ (Akbari, and Hosseini, 2008), and educational level of parents (Hsu, 2008). 

In this study we look at relationships between three variables and L2 study strategies: foreign language learning vs. second language learning environments, parents’ educational level and gender. This study is an extension of Hsu’s 2008 study which looked at the influence of parents’ education on study strategy use as measured by the SILL.  Unlike Hsu’s study, however, in this study we looked at the influences of mother’s and father’s education on students’ study strategy use, separately.

1.1 CFL/KSL

Research by Yang (2007) found that ethnicity within differing populations in Taiwan influenced language learning strategies.  Altan (2004) looking at Chinese, Turkish and Hungarian university students found significant differences between students of different nationalities within strategy categories and in terms of strategy use.  Cultural differences in language learning strategies were also found by Lengkanawati (2004), in comparing Australian and Indonesian students.

Research by Politzer, and McGroarty (1985), Tyacke, and Mendelsohn (1986), Huang, and Van Naerrsen (1987), O’Malley, and Chamot (1990), and Lengkanawati (2004) suggest that Asian students tend to prefer memorization and rule-oriented strategies.

Several more recent studies, however, have come to different conclusions.  Research reviewed by Yang (2007) found compensation strategies most frequently used by Chinese and Japanese students.  Memory and affective strategies were found to be least used by Yang (1993a, cited in Yang, 2007) and Oh (1992).  Alton (2004) found memory the least used L2 study strategy used by Chinese students in his study.  Yang (2007) found that aboriginal Taiwanese students employed primarily compensation strategies, followed by social, cognitive, metacognitive, affective and least frequently, memory strategies.  Lee, and Oxford (2008) studying Korean students found compensation strategies to be most frequently used, followed by metacognitive, cognitive, memory, affective, and social strategies.

There may be several reasons for the differences in the results between these groups of studies.  Teaching methodologies have changed during the last decades, and most Asian countries have become much more affluent, allowing for more international travel and study. This would require more compensatory strategies to supply missing knowledge such as unknown words, so that conversations with native speakers can be maintained.  Lengkanawati’s (2004) study is the exception in that it is the most recent of the studies finding that Asian’s prefer memory strategies.  To explain this he wrote: “Indonesian (EFL) students have the habit of rote learning behavior.  This behavior has become the cultural habit in studying.”

Numerous studies using the SILL have found that strategy use often differs between EFL and ESL students, with ESL students usually showing higher frequencies of at least half of the strategy categories probably due to the fact that English language was the major language they used in daily communication (reviewed in Oxford, 1996). 

Several EFL studies (reviewed in Oxford, 1996) found strategy use at a medium level, as it wasn’t generally required outside the classroom.

To quote Oxford (1996) “Thus we can see that a second language environment, which demands daily use of the target language, often calls for (or encourages) more frequent strategy use than a foreign language environment, which does not require continual use of the target language.”

1.2 Gender

Many studies have examined gender differences in study strategies. Their findings are generally quite consistent in indicating that females use a broader range of study strategies than males and use them with greater frequency (Oxford, Nykos, and Ehrman 1988, and Oxford,1996).  However, more recent studies have suggested that gender alone does not foster a broader range and higher frequency of strategy use. Rather an interaction between gender and other variables seems more important than gender alone.  Kaylani (1996) for example found an interaction between gender, level of proficiency in L2, motivation and study strategy use.  Other studies as well have called into question this previously accepted tenant of study strategy research (reviewed in Lee, and Oxford, 2008) found that gender alone did not affect strategy use significantly.  They found that strategy awareness among all possible predictors assessed in their study had had the greatest influence on strategy use, yet still only accounted for 25% of variability in strategy use.

1.3 Parents’ educational level

A study by Hsu (2008) looked at the effects of gender, parents’ educational level, and learning experience out of school on English learning strategy use.  The primary results indicated that a) elementary school students used study strategies more frequently than 2nd year junior college students, b) females use learning strategies significantly more often than males, especially affective and social strategies, and c) parents’ educational level showed the largest significant difference amongst the variables he looked at as measured by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (KS-test).