This project tries to examine some unexplored learning characteristics of the learning patterns, as defined by Vermunt (2005). The short version of the ILS, instrument used to determine learning Jan Vermunt’s learning patterns, and some scales of Pintrich’s MSLQ were administered to 379 students from different teacher training programs, attending a public university at Bogotá, Colombia. The results show important differences from previous applications to Colombian students (Vermunt and Martínez-Fernandez, 2015), and verify significant relationships among learning patterns, levels of test anxiety, academic self-efficacy and time and study environment management strategies. No relationships were found among learning patterns and peer learning and help seeking. The results are consistent to predictions inferred from the theoretical model and lead to some questions about the amplitude and precision of the way one of the patterns – the undirected – is defined. 

According to Vermunt and Donche (2017), a learning pattern is the group of activities, beliefs and motivations related to learning, that characterizes a student in a certain moment of his/her academic life. To do it, it is said that the learning process can be characterized by means of four dimensions: 1) the beliefs about how people learn; 2) the motivations of why people learn, 3) the mechanisms that regulate the process of learning and 4) the strategies used during learning

Until now, there seems to be consensus in the postulation of at least four learning patterns. They are:

• Meaning directed pattern (MD): this pattern describes those students truly interested in the content of his/her studies, able to learn in a personal, autonomous, responsible manner, and with abilities to approach learning using deep, elaborated and critical strategies.
• Application directed pattern (AD): this pattern describes those students that face learning as an activity that is useful to achieve ulterior personal goals. They are people that acts in response to their vocation towards a specific professional activity, and, in consequence they tend to work with learning contents using their connections to concrete situations or cases.
• Reproduction directed pattern (RD): this pattern can be applied to those students whose main goal is to approve the courses that take each academic period, so that they can get the corresponding diploma. In this pattern, the student seeks to memorize the learning contents, in order to reproduce then during the evaluation.
• Undirected pattern (UD): this pattern describes those students that don’t show a clear reason why they are studying and don’t seem to know what learning consists of. Accordingly, they are very passive during learning activities and seem to be very dependent on what their peers or teachers tell them to do.

The project is of a descriptive-observational type. The short version of the ILS, instrument used to determine learning Jan Vermunt’s learning patterns, and some scales of Pintrich’s MSLQ were administered to 379 students from different teacher training programs, attending a public university at Bogotá, Colombia. For the data treatment, a factorial analysis of main components with varimax rotation to the 20 scales f the ISL was ran. The resultant factorial scores were used to determine the learning pattern preponderant for each student. Once the patterns were obtained, the differences among them and the MSLQ scales used (test anxiety, self-efficacy, time and study environment management strategies, peer learning and, help seeking) were examined by means of a unidirectional variance analysis.

The results show statistical significant differences among the learning patterns groups and three of the learning characteristics considered: test anxiety, academic self-efficacy and time and study environment management strategies. In the other scales no statistical significant differences among medias were detected: in peer learning and in help seeking. The means for the test anxiety scale show that the lowest levels of anxiety are present in the MD pattern (meaning directed). In second place, with levels of anxiety significantly higher the AD pattern (application directed) and the UD pattern (undirected). The highest levels of test anxiety are registered by this last pattern and the RD pattern (reproduction directed). With respect to academic self-efficacy, the results show that, consistently with the previous result, the highest levels of self-efficacy are present among students with the MD pattern. In the second level, showing significant differences with the MD pattern, the AD students and the RD students are located. Finally, in the third and lowest level of self-efficacy the UD students are found. The last learning characteristic the showed statistically significant differences is the one related to the use of resources during study, that is, time and study environment management strategies. To this respect, students that report the highest levels with respect to time and study environment management belong to the MD pattern, followed closely by the RD students. The AD students report levels of time and study environment management that are significantly lower than their fellow students. In the las level of time and study environment management the UD students can be found.

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