Do Taiwanese Undergraduate Students with SLD Use Different Learning Strategies than Students without These Disabilities?

Abstract

This study investigated the learning strategies that university students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) report using in the Chinese language context. Participants were 105 first-year undergraduate students with SLD and 134 typically developing peers. Three questionnaires about reported reading/writing difficulties, metacognitive knowledge, and learning strategies were administered. Students with SLD reported using fewer learning strategies than students without SLD. The use of writing/research skills, which are the skills used to research topics from various sources in different ways (e.g., organizing writing projects, and monitoring for errors), significantly negatively predicted the reported reading/writing difficulties in both groups. These findings help expand our understanding of which learning strategies are useful for students with SLD and university instructors use more suitable techniques to facilitate the learning of these students.