Learning style preferences among diploma students of occupational therapy in University technology MARA (UiTM)

Abstract

This study investigated the most preference learning styles among Diploma students of Occupational Therapy. One twenty three students of Diploma in Occupational Therapy includes semester 1, 3 and 5 from Faculty of Health Sciences, UiTM Puncak Alam. A cluster sampling method was used for sample selection. The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) questionnaire consists of 44 questions that help to identify the students' learning styles out of four domains: active/reflective, sensory/intuitive, visual/verbal and sequential/global. Finding showed the most preference learning style was visual (48.2%) followed by active style (16.1%). A reasonably high preference was also shown on sensing style (10.7%), reflective style (8.0%) and sequential style (7.1%). However, preferences towards other styles were low; 5.4% for global, 2.7% for verbal and only 1.8% for intuitive style. The most students obtained good CGPA were visual learner mostly fall into the CGPA range 3.00 - 3.49 (14.8%) and 2.50 - 2.99 (29.6%), whereas the less score were intuitive learner. The students' learning styles vary according to gender, semester and academic achievement. There was no significant difference between learning styles of the students according to their academic achievement. However, it was found that there was low correlation between learning styles and academic achievement.