Awareness and Perceptions of Vocabulary Learning Strategies among Educational Majors and Specializations

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.