Developing a mini-project: Students’ questions and learning styles

Abstract

This paper is based upon a growing body of work shaped by the ‘Questions in Chemistry’ project at the University of Aveiro, Portugal (Pedrosa de Jesus, Teixeira-Dias & Watts, 2003; Teixeira-Dias et al., 2005). At this point we are concerned with the different kinds of questions raised by students with different learning styles (Kolb, Boyatzis & Mainemelis, 2001) and also with the role of these questions during the development of ‘mini-projects’ in undergraduate chemistry.Our paper focuses on one group of four students, each with a different ‘Kolb learning style’ as they develop a mini-project called ‘Chemical Detectives’. Data were collected through Kolb’s Learning Styles Inventory (Kolb, 1999), through participant observation of group meetings and of meetings with the tutor, through semi-structured interviews with members of the group, through an analysis of the oral and written questions asked by the group in the development of the mini-project and through the ensuing oral presentation made by the four students to the whole class.The results show that, during the development of the mini-project, students with different learning styles ask different kinds of questions, confirming the results found in other circumstances (Pedrosa de Jesus, Almeida & Watts, 2004; Pedrosa de Jesus et al., 2006).