Differences in learning style preference among students of diverse ethnicities, gender, academic placement level, and academic achievement
Abstract
This investigation studied the differences in learning styles among ethnically diverse secondary science students from a multicultural urban high school. It examined whether there were learning style differences among samples based on ethnicity, gender, academic grouping, and academic achievement. The learning style elements were based on scores of the Dunn, Dunn, and Price Learning Style Inventory (LSI) (1997). The sample (n = 476) consisted of students enrolled in Life Science courses. The analyses of data were made by one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Significant differences were found among students for three of the four groups tested. The largest numbers of differences in learning style element preference were in academic grouping, with eight significant differences showing small or medium effect sizes. There were four significant differences between genders and one significant difference among ethnic groups. Effect size was small. The data analyses showed that individual differences have a much bigger effect than group differences on learning style, and that proportions in learning style element categories reveal more information than means of groups. This study implied the need to increase awareness of differences in learning styles among students and help educators to understand them. Other predictors of learning styles might account for a large amount of the unexplained variation. Overall, this study reinforces the body of existing literature.
Subject Area
Curricula|Teaching|Bilingual education|Multicultural education
Recommended Citation
McGraw, Michael B, "Differences in learning style preference among students of diverse ethnicities, gender, academic placement level, and academic achievement" (2005). ProQuest ETD Collection for FIU. AAI3206028.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/dissertations/AAI3206028