Students’ Learning Style Preferences vis-à-vis their Academic Achievements in EFL classes

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the students’ perceptual learning style preferences and their academic achievements in EFL. The study is a descriptive survey approach in which mixed method design was employed. The pertinent data were obtained from 245 students. All English teachers were also taken as the sample. In collecting data, a 4- point Likert scale questionnaire called Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire (PLSPQ) was used along with interview and document analysis. The information gathered through close-ended question of the PLSPQ and document analyses were analyzed quantitatively with the help of SPSS for windows version 16. On the other hand, the data gathered through interview were analyzed qualitatively. Descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation were used to describe the respondents’ preferences of perceptual learning styles. Meanwhile, ANOVA was used to see the significance of differences among the population means of the six PLSPs. Moreover, paired-samples T-test of comparisons was the other statistics technique used to identify the mean of specific PLSP, among the six, that was statistically significantly different from the others. It was found out that they were statistically significantly different from the others. Furthermore, chi- square test was employed to observe the relationships between students’ PLSPs and their English language academic achievements. The findings of the study revealed that group, kinesthetic, tactile, visual, auditory and individual were students’ first, second, third, fourth , fifth and sixth preferred perceptual learning styles respectively. Based on the findings, the means of the six PLSPs were statistically significantly different from each other. What is more, the study revealed that there weren’t statistically significant relationships between students’ PLSPs and their English language academic achievements.