“Multimodal” Fits All: Revisiting the Relevance of Perceptual Learning Styles in Higher Education Today

Abstract

Teaching has been continuously evaluated in light of learning styles research. This highlights the significance of investigating learning styles that may be evolving in tandem with changes in the contemporary era. This study assumes that twenty-first-century students share characteristics not based on unimodal models of learning styles, particularly in higher education. It supports multimodality at both the learning and teaching levels since learners typically prefer and share various learning styles. It employs the field's most influential learning styles framework, Reid's (1987) perceptual learning styles instrument, to investigate the validity of that assumption. To add to and question the corpus of literature that exists in the field, we looked at Saudi university-level learning styles in relation to gender and academic major as independent variables. Participants were identified as English as a foreign language (EFL) student from various academic majors. The quantitative research design of this study revealed that neither academic major nor gender significantly affected the learners’ preferences. Participants demonstrated a diversity of preferences for perceptual learning styles, with minimal overall differences. Nonetheless, they favored auditory learning over group and kinaesthetic styles. It was observed that students with an English major preferred individual learning styles. Research in the field, including the current study, found some discrepancies in PLS tendencies across different contexts and factors. With such inconsistent patterns, multimodal education is a good opportunity for teachers and educationists.