The aims of this research were: (1) to know kinds of students’ strategies in learning vocabulary, (2) to know the most dominant strategy used by the students in learning vocabulary.
The writer applied descriptive method in this research. The research was conducted at the fourth semester at Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto academic year 2010/2011. The writer used simple random sampling to get the sample. The sample was 41 students consisting of four classes. The technique of data collection was questionnaire which consisted of 25 items and each item consisted of five options. The writer analyzed the data by using percentage to determine which strategy is used by each student in learning vocabulary and what vocabulary learning strategies dominantly used by the students.
The results were: (1) each student employed all of vocabulary learning strategies. There were 26 students who used determination strategy, and 9 students used cognitive strategy. On the other hand, metacognitive strategy was used by 8 students, memory strategy was used by 6 students, and there was only 1 student who used social strategy. (2) The percentage for each strategy was 69.65 % of the students used determination strategy, meanwhile metacognitive strategies reached 64.09 %. Other strategies were memory strategies which reached 61.46 %, cognitive strategies reached 61.17 %, and the last was social strategies which reached 52.29 %. So, the dominant strategy used by the students was determination strategy.