Characteristics of Social Sciences and Health Sciences Degrees: self-concept, motivation and learning strategies

Current university context is experiencing many changes and in order to achieve a better adaptation of students to this new context it is important to identify university students' characteristics. Among students characteristics' we emphasise the relevance of self-concept, or the perception that we have about ourselves, motivation and learning strategies that students use to acquire knowledge. In this study a total of 155 students from the University of Granada took part (143 female and 12 men; mean age=22.48, SD=4.11), of whom 65 were taking a degree that belongs to the Social Science disciplines (Preschool Education Degree) and 90 were taking a degree that belongs to the Health Sciences discipline (Speech Therapy degree). Results show that, in general, participants from this study obtain high scores in self-concept. More specifically they score high on family and social self-concept and low on emotional self-concept. Students from both degrees show high to moderate levels of motivation, particularly of intrinsic motivation, high levels of self-efficacy beliefs and intermediate levels of anxiety. The most frequently used learning strategy was the elaboration strategy. To conclude, despite belonging to two different disciplines, there are many similarities between students from both degrees. The implication of results is discussed.