Learning Modalities of Sixth Grade Students and the Learning and Teaching Modalities of the English Teachers at Primary Schools

Abstract

Abstract It is aimed to determine the learning styles-oriented perceptual preferences (modalities) of the sixth grade students studying in primary schools in the central district of Edirne and the learning and teaching styles-oriented perceptual preferences (modalities) of their English teachers. This study was done in frame of survey research model. The subjects of this study were 642 sixth grade students and their 20 English teachers who were working at fifteen different primary schools in the central district of Edirne in 2010-2011 academic year. In order to determine the learning modalities of the students and the teachers, Grasha-Riechmann Learning Styles Inventory; and for the teaching modalities of the teachers Grasha Teaching Styles Inventory was used. Both scales were adapted to Turkish by the researcher. The obtained data were analyzed in the SPSS package program. To analyze the data collected, frequency, percentage, mean values were calculated and the independent t- test, one-way ANOVA and correlation tests were used. The findings of the study indicated that i) the students’ collaborative and participant learning modalities are more dominant than the other learning modalities, ii) gender is an important factor for avoidant, collaborative, dependent and participant learning modalities, iii) socio-economic status is not an important factor affecting the learning modalities, iv) students’ report card marks are determining factor for just the avoidant, dependent and participant learning modalities. When the learning modalities of the teachers were investigated, it was revealed that teachers’ participant and dependent learning modalities are more dominant than the learning modalities of collaborative, competitive, independent and avoidant. In terms of the teaching modalities of the teachers, it is identified that the teachers got the highest percentage point from the personal model sub-scale. Also, the findings showed that the sex variable is an important factor in favor of the females for the expert and personal model teaching modalities. The variable of seniority had no significant effect on the differentiation of teaching modalities of the teachers. The correlation analysis between teaching and learning modalities of the teachers also showed a statistically significant relationship between some learning and teaching modalities.