Major, minor, and negative learning style preferences of university students

Abstract

This paper reports research on the learning style preferences of 1616 university students learning foreign languages for academic purposes across eight fields of study in a given educational and cultural context, namely, tertiary education in Greece. Data was collected by using the Style Analysis Survey the outcomes of which were further analysed into major, minor, and negative student style preferences. Results showed that the visual, intuitive-random and global styles constitute major preferences in all eight fields, the closure-oriented, extroverted , and concrete-sequential styles vary between major or minor preferences, the hands-on , open , and analytic styles show a variation between minor and negative preferences, and the auditory and introverted styles are negative in all fields. Conclusions suggest that foreign language instructors who are sensitive to learner-centred issues and have questioned generalised teaching approaches should be made aware of more informed teaching suggestions that employ specific language learning strategies and teaching activities.