Learning styles and the creation of online instructional resources (1)

Unfortunately, teaching is still often characterised using conventional methods, based on the transmission of knowledge through lectures, where student participation, in most cases, occurs passively and individually. The teacher's performance, in general, tends to homogenise students, which means, generally, not reaching all students. Students with different profiles end up being excluded from the educational process, implying failures and dropouts, often justified, in a limited way, due to dissatisfaction with the chosen program. In this sense, more appropriate strategies and methodologies should be defined in order to increase the effectiveness of classes and reduce student dissatisfaction, which can reduce the high rate of failing of a course and dropouts in undergraduate programs.

It is known that everyone has skills, preferences, peculiarities and their own ways of thinking and acting. This premise is also valid from the perspective of the learning process, that is, each subject has a different rhythm and way of receiving and processing information. These different ways of perceiving and working with information in the context of acquiring new knowledge can be characterised as Learning Styles (LS).

Different models of LS are presented in the literature, such as the models of Dunn, Dunn and Price (1979), Honey and Mumford (1982), Schemeck (1983), Kolb (1984), and Felder and Silverman (1988). Although there are specific aspects regarding the different models of LS, all of them share the view that learners have different preferences related to the learning process. When there are incompatibilities between the students' learning styles and the teacher's teaching style, the former can become dissatisfied and inattentive in class, losing stimulus in relation to activities, obtaining unsatisfactory results in assessments, and even leaving the classes. To address these problems, teachers should strive for a balance between teaching methods that consider the different styles. The greater the teachers' understanding of these differences, the greater the chance of meeting the different demands related to the learning process. The idea is not to teach according to everyone’s LS, but to achieve balance, ensuring that each style is worked on at a minimum level throughout the learning process. It is emphasised that to succeed in their professional lives, students need attributes associated with all categories of LS.

In the recent past, I have led work with an interdisciplinary team involving educators, psychologists, designers, speech therapists and computer scientists to create resources for online teaching that considered the different LS of students. We used Felder and Silverman's (1988) model as a basis. These authors enumerate four dimensions related to LS. One of these dimensions is called Processing. In this dimension students can be categorised as active or reflective. The former tends to process and retain information by actively participating in some activity (discussing, applying and explaining to peers); they are quick but can be hasty, and they like to work in groups. Reflexives, on the other hand, reflect more on information, are slower but tend to be more careful, and like to work individually.

The Input dimension, in turn, refers to the most effective type of input for learners, characterising them as verbal or visual. Verbal learners prefer written or spoken explanations to visual demonstration, while visual learners prefer to deal with visual representations (graphs, diagrams, videos, charts).

In relation to the Perception dimension, there are sensing and intuitive students. The latter like challenges, prefer to discover interrelationships between elements, are comfortable with abstractions and uncomfortable with routine calculations. Sensing learners, on the other hand, like to solve problems through well-established procedures, tend to be more practical and memorise facts easily.

Finally, the Progress dimension relates to how learners progress in building their understanding. Sequential learners, for example, achieve understanding in linear steps, in a sequential manner, tending to follow logical and gradual paths in solving a problem. Global learners, on the other hand, favour context, the big picture, focusing on synthesis and systems thinking.

It should be noted that everyone will have different behaviours in the four dimensions, not necessarily having dominant characteristics in each of them. For example, a given learner could have a strong visual (Input dimension) and intuitive (Perception dimension) profile, without having dominant behaviour in the other two dimensions. Furthermore, it should be emphasised that the profile of each learner does not reflect their suitability or unsuitability for a particular career, and it does not make any sense to provide recommendations for study curricula based on students' LS.

In my next article I will discuss in more detail that our group discoveries on online teaching, considering the issue of LS, and the results obtained.

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References

DUNN, R., DUNN, K., PRICE, G. E. Productivity Environmental Preference Survey. Obtainable from Price Systems, Box 1818, Lawrence, KS 66044, 1979.

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FELDER, R.M., SILVERMAN L.K, Learning and teaching styles in engineering education, Engineering Education, 78, 1988, pp. 674–681.

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HONEY, P., MUMFORD, A.?The Manual of Learning Styles. Peter Honey, Maidenhead, 1982.

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KOLB, D.A. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1984.

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SCHMECK, R. Learning styles of college students en Dillon y Schmeck In: Dillon, R.; Schmeck, R. (Eds.), Individual differences in cognition, pp. 233-279, New York: Academic Press, 1983.

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Author: Anderson Amendoeira Namen – Digital Innovation Consulting Group

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