Learning styles and motives of postgraduate distance learners undertaking a United Kingdom professional doctorate.

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the learning styles and motives for study of students enrolled on an online distance learning professional doctorate programme. The data are required to ensure that both current and potential future programmes meet students’ needs and provide the best possible learning experiences.Methodology: All 66 current students enrolled on a UK professional doctorate programme were invited to participate in this online questionnaire-based study. Participants completed the 44-item Index of Learning Styles questionnaire to describe learning preferences along 4 dimensions; active-reflective, sensing-intuitive, visual-verbal and sequential-global. Fourteen subsequent items explored students’ motives for study in three areas; intrinsic factors, extrinsic factors and career-related factors. Potential differences in motives for study between UK and non-UK students were explored.Results: The cohort displayed balanced learning preferences along the active-reflective, sensing-intuitive and sequential-global dimensions, but a significant preference for visual learning was identified along the visual-verbal dimension. A moderate or strong preference for visual learning was identified in 79.2 % of respondents. Regarding the motives for study, intrinsic and career-related factors were most important, with extrinsic factors being poor motivators for respondents. No significant differences in motives for study were identified between UK and non-UK students.Discussion: Learning styles may be easily studied amongst distance learners, and has the potential to reveal preferences that educators should consider in their teaching activities. In line with some previously published work, intrinsic factors were the most important motives for study in this cohort of mature learners, with extrinsic factors being of low importance. No evidence was found to support the assertion that East Asian students are more likely to be affected by extrinsic push factors.