Abstract:

Introduction:
One of the priorities in higher educational institutions is to promote autonomous learning in the students to accomplish meaningful learning. However, there is evidence in everyday life and in educational practice that students still have difficulties to move from a traditional model where classes are guided by professors, to an autonomous model with greater commitment by students. The aim of this work was to evaluate if there were differences between the successes questions of the exam depending on whether the subject units were taught in a traditional model or with a more autonomous work by the undergraduates.

Methods:
A total of 105 students of the 2nd course of the Teaching Degree (between 18-23 years of age) from the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas de Teruel (University of Zaragoza, Spain) participated in that work. The main variables measured in the study were: well answered questions in the exam and exam marks depending on the teaching model (the traditional model where the professor taught the subject and gave all the units information, and the autonomous one, where the student had a recorded video with the material of the unit and had to work on it, achieving some activities, autonomously). Quantitative responses were coded and prepared for analysis using the statistical analysis software SPSS.

Results:
The results showed that when faced with a traditional teaching-learning model, the correct answers in the exam were greater than when the students prepared the different units by themselves, working independently (student T test p<0.05). In addition, the exam grades were higher when the classes were taught by the professor than when the students actively work on the preparation of the several subject units.

Conclusions:
Learning strategies involve more time than traditional methods, a more autonomous job and therefore with self-regulation of the process. In general, students possess a natural disposition toward traditional classes (involving only the teacher work) and could present resistance to being active in their learning. Furthermore, the goal of any particular learning strategy will be to affect the motivational and affective state and the way in which the student selects, acquires, organizes or integrates new knowledge; so, previous training skills work could be interesting in the new learning models.

Keywords:

Autonomous learning, video-based learning, expository teaching, higher education.