Objective:

To describe the learning strategies of students in the Nursing Program, Santo Tomas University, Temuco-Chile, and determine their relationships with academic performance and other sociodemographic variables.

Methods:

This is a transversal and non-experimental study with a non-probabilistic and by convenience sample constituted by 185 nursing students from all levels. The ACRS-Abbreviated Learning Strategies Scale (Acquisition, Coding, Recall, Support to information) was used. The Strata 11.0 was used to calculate averages, T-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlations.

Results:

Students use diverse strategies, mainly those related to repetition and rereading (acquisition) and those related to social support. Female students use more strategies than male students; and differences were found on those strategies related to selection, organization and elaboration (coding), and highlighting (acquisition). No consistent relationships between the use of strategies and the academic performance were found.

Conclusion:

While several learning strategies are known, though not extensively used, they are basically applied as a memorization tool. A proposal is presented to develop the assessment of learning strategies during enrollment, and support teacher training, while at the same time establishing programs to improve the capacity of students to manage their learning process.