Study resources, study habits, approaches to learning.

The paper reports on an exploratory research focused on the study habits of university students concerning the use of study resources. The aim of the study was to find out what study resources university students used, in which ways they used the resources and if the ways of use were related to the students’ approaches to learning. By the term ‘study resources’, any text resources are understood, including the iconic ones, which are used as sources of information or means to acquire the course content. In recent years, some studies in the broad research field of higher education concerning teaching and learning resources have occurred, the vast majority of those focused on the comparison of printed and digital materials. Apart from this strong thematic stream, research on the use of university study resources still remains to be rather limited. Understanding and diagnostics of learning approaches in this research stem from the theory of approaches to learning which is based on classical studies by Marton and Säljö on deep and surface approach (e.g. Marton & Säljö, 1997) and the conception of strategic approach according to Entwistle and Ramsden (1983). Considering the lack of research findings of the usage of study resources and study habits of university students related to resources, and since the aim was to verify if there are differences in the study habits of students in relation to their approaches to learning, a design of an exploratory quantitative survey has been adopted. The data were elicited by means of two tools: an adapted, Czech version of an original British tool ASSIST (Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students) and The Use of Study Resources Questionnaire (USRQ), a tool of our own construction. ASSIST questionnaire was originally developed at the University of Edinburgh and throughout the years, its validity has been examined in many different countries and cultures. The tool has been adapted, verified in a pilot study and confirmatory an