Learning Style Preferences Of Students Research Articles

Differences in Learning Styles: A comparison of Slovenian Universities

Students have various learning styles. Since we cannot adapt to each single student, we can still find differences across the students that attend different universities. To achieve better results when teaching, the educators should understand which learning style prevails in their students. Our research was conducted via questionnaire and included questions about the students and their learning styles. We used the Honey and Mumford's learning style questionnaire (LSQ) to measure the various learning styles (reflectors, theorists, activists, pragmatists) across three Slovenian universities, searched for the learning style that prevails in each university and present the differences among them. We found minor differences in the prevailing learning styles and propose to the educators to plan their teaching approaches on our findings. We propose further examination of students’ learning styles to improve the learning experience and to generalize this approach when dealing with students learning style preferences.

Assessment of learning style preferences of pharmacy students: Findings from public university of Malaysia

Background: Student’s learning style preference is an important consideration for effective and high quality teaching and learning process. Different teaching approaches may not suit students’ preferences, hence, producing a gap between learning and delivery instructions. The aim of this study was to assess the learning style preferences among the first year pharmacy students of public sector university of Malaysia. Methods: A prospective cross sectional study was conducted during non-lecture hour using validated VAK (visual, aural, and kinaesthetic) questionnaire. After a brief description about the study, the questionnaire was distributed to investigate student’s learning mode preferences. Results: A total of 118 responses were received, giving a response rate of 100%. Unimodal learning style was preferred by majority of the students (94.07%). Specifically, visual approach of learning was commonly reported by the participants (53.4%), followed by kinaesthetic mode (22.88%) and auditory mode (17.8%) respectively. Bimodal and tri-modal learning approach was preferred by 5.08% and 0.85% patients respectively. Gender, residency, number of siblings and parent’s income did not influence learning preferences of pharmacy students indicating no significance association between the factors and learning styles of the students. Conclusion: The study concluded that teaching styles should be adapted to accommodate the preferences of learning styles among pharmacy students to improve the quality of the teaching and learning experiences of pharmacy students.

An Exploratory Study of the Language-learning Style Preferences of Iranian EFL High School Students

This study explored the learning style preferences of 40 Iranian students at Marefat Iranian high school in Kuala Lumpur of which, 20 are females and 20 are males. To this end, this study used structured interview to elicit in-depth information from the students. The results of the study showed that learning style preferences of Iranian students were different according to their gender. Female students preferred auditory learning as their major learning style, while male students preferred kinesthetic more. Moreover, the findings revealed that Kinesthetic learning was the least preferred learning style of the most female students, whereas the least preferred learning style of male students was tactile learning. Keywords: Learning Style Preferences, High School Students, Gender, EFL

Relationship between the learning style preferences of medical students and academic achievement.

Objectives:To investigate the relationship between the learning style preferences of Saudi medical students and their academic achievements.Methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted among 600 medical students at King Saud University in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from October 2012 to July 2013. The Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic questionnaire (VARK) questionnaire was used to categorize learning style preferences. Descriptive and analytical statistics were used to identify the learning style preferences of medical students and their relationship to academic achievement, gender, marital status, residency, different teaching curricula, and study resources (for example, teachers’ PowerPoint slides, textbooks, and journals).Results:The results indicated that 261 students (43%) preferred to learn using all VARK modalities. There was a significant difference in learning style preferences between genders (p=0.028). The relationship between learning style preferences and students in different teaching curricula was also statistically significant (p=0.047). However, learning style preferences are not related to a student’s academic achievements, marital status, residency, or study resources (for example, teachers’ PowerPoint slides, textbooks, and journals). Also, after being adjusted to other studies’ variables, the learning style preferences were not related to GPA.Conclusion:Our findings can be used to improve the quality of teaching in Saudi Arabia; students would be advantaged if teachers understood the factors that can be related to students’ learning styles.

Assessment of Individual Learning Style Preferences with Respect to the Key Language Competences

The paper focuses on the assessment of individual learning style preferences of students of two different disciplines, Management of Tourism and Applied Informatics, at Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove. The Felder-Silverman learning styles inventory was administered to students in Professional English language course in the Blackboard learn environment to monitor and check students’ proficiency of key language competences. Descriptive statistics identified that students do vary in their preference for particular learning style with a great variety of learning style preferences distributed among the sample groups of students. A large number of the students showed mild preference to Active, Visual and Sequential learning styles. On the other hand, there is a large group of students displaying a strong preference to Sensing learning style dimension. The key language competences defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) are tested in the computer-based environment with a special view on studentś individual learning styles.

Pedagogical-psychological Aspects of LS Preferences within the Bachelor English Course

One of the most debated concepts in the teaching and educational literature is the study of learning styles. Almost everyone in the education field agrees that different students learn best in different ways. There is far more disagreement, however, when it comes to classifying the learning styles. Educators and researchers are often overwhelmed by the huge number of definitions, theoretical models, and learning style instruments. If a classification system was widely agreed upon, there would still be problems in developing an assessment tool capable of accurately determining each student's learning style preference. Furthermore, it seems that the current research work on this topic doesn’t provide a convincing recommendation for how pedagogical practices should be altered in order to improve student learning performance and results. This paper will provide a brief overview of the learning styles literature and definitions, outlining the major pedagogical and psychological implications, including the outcome of an English language course innovation that was inspired by the Felder's LS model.

Learning Style Preferences of Medical Students and Their Determinants at a Government Medical College in Eastern Uttar Pradesh

Learning Style Preferences of Medical Students and Their Determinants at a Government Medical College in Eastern Uttar Pradesh

Association of academic performance with learning style preference of medical students: Multi-center study from Pakistan

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess preferred learning styles and determine their association with the academic performance of undergraduate medical students in various medical colleges in Pakistan. Participants and Methods: A cross-sectional study of 597 medical students from six medical colleges (~100 from each college) was performed. The validated VARK questionnaire version 7.0 was used to categorize the learning styles of students. The questionnaire consists of 16 items which identify four different learning styles: Visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic (VARK). Descriptive statistics were used to identify the learning styles of students. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the academic performance (marks obtained in last professional examination) between students having different learning styles. Results: The response rate was 82.9%. The results showed that mean scores for VARK styles were 4.28 ± 0.09, 4.91 ± 0.08, 4.54 ± 0.07, and 4.75 ± 0.09, respectively. Only 164 (27.6%) students preferred a unimodal learning style, i.e., 38 (6.4%), 56 (9.4%), 20 (3.4%), and 50 (8.4%) preferred the VARK modes, respectively, whereas 72.4% of students preferred multiple learning styles. ANOVA showed there was no significant difference of academic performance among the students having different learning styles. Conclusions: Majority of students prefers multimodal learning styles and learning style preference is not associated with academic performance in medical students across Pakistan. The results of this study provide useful information for improving the quality of the medical teaching and learning experiences of medical students. However, further research is needed to explore the association among learning style preferences, learning strategies, and academic performance.

Assessment of learning preferences among dental students using Visual, Aural, Read-Write, Kinesthetic questionnaire: An institutional experience

Background and Objectives: Every individual has different learning style. As dental educators, it is necessary to recognize the fact that each dental student may have a preference of acquiring information and skill in one style over another. The objective of this study was to determine the learning style preferences of dental students using the Visual, Aural, Read-Write, Kinesthetic (VARK) questionnaire. Materials and Methods: The VARK questionnaire was administered to 20 1 st year and 40 2 nd year dental students of Melaka Manipal Medical College, Manipal University to determine their preferred mode of learning. Completed questionnaires were scored and tabulated to determine the distribution of VARK preferences. Results: Nearly 50% of 1 st year students were quadmodal whereas 55% of 2 nd year students were unimodal in which kinesthetic preference was dominant. Mean V and A scores were significantly higher for 1 st year than 2 nd year students. No significant gender difference was seen. Conclusion: The dental students in this study had varied learning preferences. As dental educators, we need to adopt different methods of teaching in order to reach most of the students and make the educational experience more productive.

Assessment of learning style preferences of medical undergraduate students: A cross-sectional study

Context: As doctors who are also teachers we must be aware of the various learning styles used by our students. Each style is unique in how a student takes in knowledge. Thus to maximize output, we need to facilitate their learning process as teachers. Aims: This study was undertaken to assess the predominant learning style of 2 nd year medical students and to compare the learning modality used with the academic performance. Settings and Design: Cross-sectional study undertaken in a Government Medical college of Bangalore, Karnataka, India. Materials and Methods: A total of 210 second year medical undergraduates in a Government Medical College, Bangalore were asked to fill a pre tested and pre validated visual, auditory, read/write, kinesthetic questionnaire, version 7.3 developed by Neil Fleming. The students were then scored to assess the predominant learning modality used. Statistical Analysis Used: Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, Fisher's test and unpaired (two sample) t -test were used to study the variables. Results: Majority of the students were multimodal (61%). Kinesthetic was the predominant modality used, both among unimodal (56.8%) and multimodal (31.8%) learners. There was no significant difference in the learning modalities of male and female students. There was also no difference in academic performance of uni- and multi-modal learners. Conclusions: Current teaching styles do not support the student fraternity that is predominantly multimodal. Various workshops must be conducted to train teachers to adapt their teaching styles. Multiple methods must be used simultaneously deliver knowledge and information to the students to improve their acceptance.

INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF THE AGE, GENDER AND YEARS LEARNING ENGLISH ON LEARNING STYLES PREFERENCES

Demographical factors may have an impact on learning and teaching styles across the continents. This study was to explore whether demographical factors namely age, gender and English learning experience are related to the learning style preferences of English Major Students from the foreign languages faculty in Iran. The sample for this study comprised of 310 English Major Students. In this study, quantitative approach was used in the collection of the data .The instruments used in this study included the Index of Learning Styles Inventory by Felder and Soloman (2006) and Oxford (1990). The results of the study revealed that except for Learning Style Pair 2 (LSP2) (Sensing/Intuition), all the other learning styles pairs were not related to demographical factors.

Learning style preferences of preclinical medical students in oman.

Our study sought to assess the learning preferences of students studying in the preclinical years of the medical degree program at Oman Medical College, Sohar. In this descriptive, cross-sectional study, we administered a learning style questionnaire (VARK model) to 140 students to assess their preferred mode of learning, specifically the sensory modality by which they prefer to take in information. Over one third (35%) of the respondents expressed their preference for a single mode of learning, either visual (8%), auditory (9%), read/write (9%), or kinesthetic (9%). The remaining students preferred learning using a combination of either two (14%), three (19%), or four (32%) sensory modalities. The results of our study provide us with useful information to develop appropriate learning approaches to reach all types of learners at the college.

An exploratory study of the relationship between learning styles and academic performance among students in different nursing programs.

Abstract Background: Learning style is a major consideration in planning for effective and efficient instruction and learning. Learning style has been shown to influence academic performance in the previous research. Little is known about Taiwanese students' learning styles, particularly in the field of nursing education. Aim: This purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between learning styles and academic performance among nursing students in a five-year associate degree of nursing (ADN) program and a two-year bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program in Taiwan. Methods/Design: This study employed a descriptive and exploratory design. The Chinese version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Form M was an instrument. Data such as grade point average (GPA) were obtained from the Office of Academic Affairs and the Registrar computerized records. Descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance ANOVA) and chi-square statistical analysis were used to explore the relationship between academic performance and learning style in Taiwanese nursing students. Results/Findings: The study sample included 285 nursing students: 96 students in a two-year BSN program, and 189 students in a five-year ADN program. Two common learning styles were found: introversion, sensing, thinking, and judging (ISTJ); and introversion, sensing, feeling, and judging (ISFJ). A sensing-judging pair was identified in 43.3% of the participants. Academic performance was significantly related to learning style (p < 0.05, d.f. = 15). Conclusion: The results of this study can help educators devise classroom and clinical instructional strategies that respond to individual needs in order to maximize academic performance and enhance student success. A large sample is recommended for further research. Understanding the learning style preferences of students can enhance learning for those who are under performing in their academic studies, thereby enhancing nursing education.

Concrescent Conversation as a Group Communication Tool in a Chinese University MBA Course

In order to be more competitive in the global marketplace, China has adopted a long-term plan to reform their higher education system. One specific aim of this plan is to facilitate the achievement of China’s goal of building a world-class market-driven economy through the development of an adequate supply of MBA-trained professional managers to lead their organizations. This case study presents an exploratory and descriptive research approach to assess the effects of an instructional delivery scenario in which concrescent conversation was used as a communication tool to create a cooperative learning setting in a mainland Chinese MBA course. The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) model was used to determine the learning style preference of the Chinese students. The study also investigated the relation between a student’s preferred learning style with gender and major (business, engineering, math, and science). Sensing-intuitive was the only ILS subscale with a significant difference across gender and major. Females exhibited a moderate preference for sensing learning while males exhibited a mild preference for sensing learning. Among majors, only business and engineering were significantly different from each other. Business majors tended to prefer the moderate sensing learning style and engineering majors indicated a preference for mild sequential learning style. Contrary to the literature on learning style differences attributed to specific cultural orientation, additional observations and results revealed that the Chinese MBA students accepted the instructional delivery scenario in which concrescent conversation was used to implement a student-centered learning setting.

An exploratory study of the relationship between learning styles and academic performance among students in different nursing programs

Background: Learning style is a major consideration in planning for effective and efficient instruction and learning. Learning style has been shown to influence academic performance in the previous research. Little is known about Taiwanese students’ learning styles, particularly in the field of nursing education. Aim: This purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between learning styles and academic performance among nursing students in a 5-year associate degree of nursing (ADN) program and a 2-year bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program in Taiwan. Methods/Design: This study employed a descriptive and exploratory design. The Chinese version of the Myers–Briggs type indicator Form M was an instrument. Data such as grade point average were obtained from the Office of Academic Affairs and the Registrar computerized records. Descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance and chi-square statistical analysis were used to explore the relationship between academic performance and learning style in Taiwanese nursing students. Results/Findings: The study sample included 285 nursing students: 96 students in a 2-year BSN program, and 189 students in a 5-year ADN program. Two common learning styles were found: Introversion, sensing, thinking, and judging; and introversion, sensing, feeling, and judging. A sensing–judging pair was identified in 43.3% of the participants. Academic performance was significantly related to learning style (p < 0.05, df = 15). Conclusion: The results of this study can help educators devise classroom and clinical instructional strategies that respond to individual needs in order to maximize academic performance and enhance student success. A large sample is recommended for further research. Understanding the learning style preferences of students can enhance learning for those who are under performing in their academic studies, thereby enhancing nursing education.

How Do Hospitality and Tourism Undergraduate Students Learn? From a Perspective of Learning Styles

This theoretical paper presents the influence of learning styles and culture values on facilitating undergraduate students’ learning. Learning styles describe the way people process information. Many learning style inventories have been developed and applied widely, for example, Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory (LSI) and Honey and Mumford’s Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ). However, limited research has been conducted in the field of hospitality and tourism higher education, particularly in eastern culture. Past research in the hospitality and tourism higher education did not reveal if certain learning styles can contribute to better learning outcomes, however, there is a significant difference in preferred learning styles of students in terms of different cultural values. Therefore, it makes it pivotal to consider the influence of culture difference when examining how learning styles contribute to better learning outcomes in future research. Therefore, hospitality and tourism educators can properly plan useful strategies to accommodate different learning styles and enhance students’ learning.

A Pilot Analysis of Pharmacy Students Learning Style Preferences at A Malaysian University

A Cross-Sectional Assessment of Health Related Quality Of Life among Type 2 Diabetic Patients in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia I.S.Alaboudi,M.A.Hassali,A.A.Shafie,K.AlRubeaan, A. Hassan, A.A. Alrasheedy, Discipline of Social & Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800, Malaysia, University Diabetic Center, King Abdul Aziz University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Academic Disciplines and Learning Style Preferences of students in graduate level

Learning styles preference is the vital aspect for teaching learning process. This paper mainly focuses on determining the learning styles of first year graduate students of Tikapur Multiple Campus and examining the relationship between students' Learning style preferences (LSPs) and their faculty as well as gender. The instrument, Index of Learning Styles (ILS), is administered to 112 randomly selected students. As for the data analysis, descriptive statistics portrays the frequencies, percentages; the chi square test is conducted to see whether students' LSPs differ according to faculties and the Crosstabs procedure is conducted to investigate whether the LSPs of the students at TMC differ according to their gender. The results indicate that there is no significant difference between students' LSPs and faculty except understanding dimension. Revealing what the learning style preferences of the first year graduate students of TMC and through this research. Therefore, it will be helpful for further research and pedagogical implications for the teachers to match their teaching with their students.

Learning Style Preferences of Undergraduate Dietetics, Athletic Training, and Exercise Science Students

The study assessed the preferred learning style (LS) of college students and compared LS preferences among students majoring in Dietetics, Exercise Science, and Athletic Training. LS questionnaires were distributed to students ( N =693, mean age 20.5±1.7) enrolled in health science courses at three Midwestern universities. Most students preferred a converger LS followed by assimilator, accommodator, and diverger. Some students preferred a combination of two LS. Chi square results indicated a significant relationship between college major and LS. Students in health majors were all observed to have a significant LS preference, namely the converger LS. However, distributions of preferred LS within each major differed. Understanding preferred LS of college students in different academic programs may increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning.

A Comparative Study of Chemistry Students’ Learning Styles Preferences in Selected Public and Private Schools in Lagos Metropolis

This study investigated the learning style preferences of chemistry students in both public and private secondary schools in Lagos metropolis, Nigeria. Descriptive research survey design was adopted for this study. The sample consisted of two hundred (200) SS 2 Chemistry students. The participants were selected using hat and draw and disproportionate stratified sampling methods. Instruments used to collect data were the Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) and the VAK Learning style Test (VLST). The reliability measures of CAT and VLST were 0.66 and 0.70 respectively. Four research questions and corresponding hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data collected were analysed using Chi-square statistics. The result showed that there is a significant relationship between learning style preferences of students and their performance in the chemistry achievement test in both public and private schools. Visual learning style was the predominant preference among students in both school types. The researcher recommends that chemistry teachers should use a variety of teaching styles to accommodate the various learning styles of their students. An alignment between teaching and learning styles will improve the teaching, learning and performance of students in Chemistry.