Preferences, learning strategies, and academic motivation among university students: methodological audit and systematized qualitative synthesis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61347/rien.v3i2.123Keywords:
Academic motivation, higher education, learning strategies, qualitative synthesis, university studentsAbstract
Career preferences among college students are shaped by the interaction between individual vocation, learning strategies, assessment processes, and conditions in the educational environment. This study assesses the methodological consistency of a document corpus consisting of 98 records and synthesizes the available qualitative evidence on the relationship between preferences, learning strategies, and academic motivation. A literature review with qualitative thematic synthesis was conducted, following the PRISMA 2020 and ENTREQ reporting guidelines. The corpus, derived from searches in the Scopus, Redalyc, and SpringerLink databases, facilitated the verification of metadata, eligibility, text retrieval, and the consistency of documented decisions. The audit reclassified the records into four full-text articles used in the synthesis, 20 candidates for comprehensive evaluation, 26 potential exclusions due to study design, 7 due to study population or document type, and 41 with insufficient information. The methodological evaluation of the four full-text articles was conducted using the JBI checklist and a descriptive Methodological Quality Indicator (ICMᶜ), defined as a descriptive measure of criteria with favorable evidence identified, with values ranging from 40% to 50%. The synthesis identified three interpretive themes: the meaning of assessment, social support, and conditions of the digital environment. The findings showed that academic motivation depends on the context in which learning experiences take place; therefore, it is not methodologically sound to attribute uniform motivational effects to educational preferences, strategies, or resources
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Copyright (c) 2026 Laura Celina Aguiar Sahona, María Fernanda Bravo Delgado, Eduardo Espinoza-Solis
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