Interrelations among university students’ approaches to learning, regulation of learning, and cognitive and attributional strategies: a person oriented approach Annamari Heikkila ¨ • Markku Niemivirta • Juha Nieminen • Kirsti Lonka Published online: 22 June 2010 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Abstract This study investigated the relationships among approaches to learning, regu- lation of learning, cognitive and attributional strategies, stress, exhaustion, and study success. University students (N = 437) from three faculties filled in a questionnaire con- cerning their self-reported study behaviour, cognitive strategies, and well-being. Their interrelations were examined in a variable- and a person-oriented way. Latent class clus- tering was used for clustering students into homogeneous groups. Three groups of students were identified: non-academic, self-directed, and helpless students. Helpless students reported higher levels of stress and exhaustion than non-academic or self-directed students. Self-directed students had the highest GPA. Our findings demonstrate the usefulness of combining cognitive and emotional aspects for investigations of students’ learning. Keywords Approaches to learning Á Regulation of learning Á Cognitive and attributional strategies Á Latent class clustering Á Study success Introduction Recent research has shown that classic concepts of educational psychology—such as motivation, approaches to learning, or regulation of learning—by themselves explain only limited amounts of variance in learning outcomes. Traditionally those concepts, theories, and frameworks have been studied separately. It is important to explore, whether, A. Heikkila ¨(&) Á J. Nieminen Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 9, 00014 Helsinki, Finland e-mail: annamari.heikkila@helsinki.fi M. Niemivirta Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland K. Lonka Research Centre for Educational Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 123 High Educ (2011) 61:513–529 DOI 10.1007/s10734-010-9346-2