Nowadays, Information Technology and Communication (ICT) tools are essential to be integrated into knowledge society. In fact, actual university is based on two basic pillars: the ICT and student-centered learning. Therefore, we need to know how students learn and how they learn with these new technological resources.
The first pillar, information and communication technologies, recently various studies and reports (Almerich, Suárez, Jornet & Orellana, 2011; Balanskat, & Gertsch, 2010; Condie, Munro, Muir & Collins, 2005; Durando, Blamire, Balanskat & Joyce, 2008; ISTE, 2007; Imhof, Vollmeyer and Beierlein, 2007; Sigalés, Mominó, Meneses & Badía, 2008) have addressed the issue of ICT competencies and use in relation to students, either from the own university level or non-university education. The ICT competencies are a set of knowledge and abilities that allow students mastering to the technological resources. These can be divided into technological competencies - knowledge and skills of technological resources- and pedagogical competencies - knowledge and skills involving the application to the academic field of ICT. Regarding the use of ICT by students can be distinguished two characteristic spheres: personal and academic. The first relates to the use of ICT by students for personal activities. The second relates to the use of different technological resources for academic sphere, for the learning carried out in in the university.
The second pillar, learning at the university, the student must possess the necessary learning strategies to achieve knowledge. According to Gargallo, Suárez-Ródriguez y Pérez-Pérez (2009) learning strategies can be understood as the organized, conscious and intentional whole of what the student effectively achieve to learn an objective in a given social context. For these authors, strategies can be divided in affective, support and control strategies and cognitive strategies. In the latter, the Information Processing Strategies can be distinguished as Information Search and Selection Strategies, that assess how the student can find and select the information to achieve appropriate learning; and Information Processing and Use Strategies, which assess the extent to which the student is able to process, develop, organize, understand and endorse to retrieve and use the information.
The aim of this study was to determine the structure of information search and selection strategies, and information processing and use strategies, together with technological and pedagogical competencies, and personal and academic use of students.
