Abstract:
This research explores the awareness and the perceptions towards vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) of undergraduates from the Faculty of Education in a Thai university. All 300 participating students from 12 academic majors completed a questionnaire featuring Likert-scale items based on Schmitt’s (1997) taxonomy of VLS, covering cognitive, memory, and metacognitive strategies, alongside open-ended questions. The participants demonstrated favorable overall perceptions of VLS (M = 3.88) and a moderate to high level of awareness (M = 3.65). An independent samples t-test revealed that language majors reported significantly greater awareness than non-language majors (p < 0.01), while perceptions remained consistent across both groups. Students' qualitative responses complemented the findings, stating a need for more explicit teaching in addition to describing the benefits and challenges. The study's findings suggest a need to incorporate explicit VLS instruction not only in language courses but also within content-focused subjects across the curriculum. This approach may help foster greater learner autonomy and address the observed gap between students' positive perceptions and their practical application of these crucial skills.
