Students' Preferred Learning Styles and the Importance of Curriculum Content: A Study of Norwegian Tourism and Hospitality Students

Abstract

This Norwegian study explores the learning style preferences of first, second and third year students in Tourism and Hospitality Programmes. Comparing the findings with an UK/Australian study, this study uncovers interesting differences in learning style preferences amongst UK/Australian students and Norwegian students. In addition, the importance of the curricula content is discussed in relation to the findings of changing learning style preferences between first, second and third year students, which indicates that learning styles can change. An approach to explain this phenomenon is to consider the theoretical content of curricula, in relation to the goal of developing students to become philosophical practioners (PP). The study concludes that if the aim is to develop PP the content of the curriculum has to be modified accordingly, and that even though learning styles are important for how and what students learn, the content of the curriculum is also of importance.