The Awareness and Preferences of EFL Students on their Perceptual Learning Styles

Renan Saylağ, Turkey

Renan Saylağ works at Bahçeşehir University Prep School in Istanbul, Turkey. She teaches English at all levels based on a modular system which also meets the requirements of Common European Framework. She is also earning PhD at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. She is interested in improving reading and writing skills by taking learning styles and learning strategies into consideration in academic studies.
E-mail: renansaylag@gmail.com

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Introduction
Background to the study
Purpose of the study
Significance of the study
Questions of the study
Limitations
Definitions of terms
Review of literature
Method
Subjects / sampling
Data collection instruments
Data collection procedures
Data analysis procedures
Discussion of findings
Conclusion and recommendations
References
Appendices

Introduction

Students have different strengths and preferences in the way they take in and process information - which is to say they have different learning styles. Some prefer to work with experimental data while others are more comfortable with abstract notions. Teachers need to find ways of enhancing learning for those who might not have responded to conventional forms of teaching and learning. Individuals differ in their ways of learning and require different ways of teaching which take account for these individual differences. In this study, students are first given interview questions in order to check how aware they are of their own learning styles.During the second step, students will complete VARK (Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and Kinaesthetic learning styles inventory) questionnaire to find out what their own learning styles are. Last of all, they will be given some follow-up interview questions to evaluate their feelings and attitudes about the effect of their awareness on their learning. This study seeks to verify that students prefer to learn in ways that are personally unique to them. The study proposes a model for learning style preference and awareness which recommends further research aimed at contributing to an understanding of personalized education, differential pedagogy and learning differences in the classroom.

Background to the study

As much research indicates, although there has been a long tradition of psychological and educational theory and research about learning styles, the Turkish Ministry of Education has been involved in such learning style based teaching only recently. Today, there is a new wave of effort to define effective teaching in Turkish education. This requires a revision of the curriculum. Innovations brought about by MONE reflect constructivist principles such as improvement of pedagogical skills, creating environments conducive to learning while deemphasizing transmission of theoretical knowledge and enhancing the interaction between education faculties and the schools where prospective teachers observe classrooms and practice teaching. The program further considers the education standards of EU countries (www.meb.gov.tr/indexeng.htm).

Kavanoz (2006) states that one of the targets in the 7th five year plan of the government is rearranging and reorganizing curricular programs, teaching methods and techniques, and education-training equipment materials in accord with international standards. A major premise of the new trend in education in Turkey is that pupils should be actively involved in their own learning and in the construction and development of knowledge and ideas. It is also proposed that more attention should be paid to the individual learning needs of different students so that variations in student learning styles, speeds and abilities can be better catered to.
(http://programlar.meb.gov.tr/index/giris_index.htm)

This is why doing research on how students’ learning styles impact their academic achievement is necessary. According to Rayner and Riding (1997), a contemporary overview of style can contribute to a rationalization of the theory and facilitate greater application of learning style in educational practice. That is why determining learning styles of students via interviews and questionnaires could be helpful in creating better lessons both for the teacher and the students.

Purpose of the study

This study aims to identify a group of EFL students’ perceptual learning styles (visual, verbal, aural, physical, logical, social and solitary) via an available learning style (VARK) inventory. It also investigates whether the students’ awareness of their learning styles has an impact on their academic achievement.

Significance of the study

Teaching requires finding ways to enhance learning and support for those who might not have responded to conventional methods of teaching. Individuals are seen to differ in their preferred ways of learning. That is why different teaching styles should be applied and taken into consideration in ESL/EFL classes. Language teachers need to be aware of their students’ learning differences in order to be able to meet their learning needs or else learners might switch off to learning. In this research, we want to investigate the students’ perceptions on learning styles and how their awareness affects the teacher’s and students’ performance. Therefore, this research will provide meaningful suggestions for overcoming the problems that may arise from the differences in the learning styles of students.

Questions of the study

1. Are EFL students at prep school of Bahçesehir University aware of their own learning styles?
2. What are their reported learning styles?
3. How do students react when they learn their learning style?
4. What are the benefits of the application of VARK inventory in EFL classes?

Limitations

In this research study, unfortunately, there were some limitations such as time and participation of the respondents. The time which was allocated for the study was only 4 months as the school has a module-based system in which every 2 months classes change, therefore the study cannot be conducted for a long period of time. Another limitation was students’ participation in the questionnaire. Because the students have exam anxiety, not many volunteered to take part in such a research. Due to this voluntary participation, the outcomes cannot be generalized to larger populations.

Definitions of terms

Style: a term that refers to consistent and rather enduring tendencies or preferences within an individual. Styles are those general characteristics of individual functioning which are especially pertinent to individuals. They differentiate you from someone else. For example, you might be more visually oriented, more tolerant of ambiguity, or more reflective than someone else- these are styles that characterize a general pattern in your thinking or feeling.

Learning Styles: the cognitive, affective, and psychological behaviors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with and respond to learning environments. Some students are partial to visual presentation of pictures, flowcharts, diagrams, schematics, etc. and others benefit from verbal, aural, kinesthetic and tactile styles.

Review of literature

Teaching and learning are active processes which go hand in hand with each other. Teachers and learners are dependent one another. It is essential to realize that both the teachers and students should be informed of the crucial role of learning styles during the learning process, and it should not be neglected in the teaching of a foreign language. Language teachers’ awareness of differences in students’ learning can lead to more productive and effective lessons. On the other hand, lecturers’ unawareness in both their own learning styles and students’ learning styles may lead to misleading assessments. Therefore, administering proper learning style inventories before planning curriculums and lessons is very important. A person’s learning style is hypothesized to be a combination of cognitive, affective, and psychological characteristics that describe how that individual interacts with his or her environment. Specifically, how well a person absorbs and retains information depends largely on whether the information was received in the person’s preferred learning modality (Zapalska&Dabb, 2002).

Research with language students (R. Dunn, 1984; Reinert, 1976) has demonstrated that learners have four basic perceptual learning channels (or modalities):

1. Visual learning: reading, studying charts
2. Auditory learning: listening to lectures, audiotapes
3. Kinaesthetic learning: experiential learning, that is, total physical involvement with a learning situation
4. Tactile learning: “hands-on” learning, such as building models or doing laboratory experiments

In their research on learning styles, Dunn and Dunn (1979) found that only 20-30% of school age children appear to be auditory learners, that 40% are visual, and that the remaining 30-40% are tactile/kinesthetic, visual/tactile, or some other combinations. Carbo (1983), investigating the perceptual styles of readers, found that good readers prefer to learn through their visual and auditory senses, while poor readers have a stronger preference for tactile and kinesthetic learning. Farr (1971), who asked postsecondary students to identify their learning style preferences through self-reporting questionnaires, reported that their preferred learning styles paralleled to their actual learning strengths. ESL instructors often use methods and materials that have been developed with the learning needs of native speakers of English in mind. In many cases, neither students nor teachers are aware of the fact that difficulty in learning class material, high frustration levels, and even failure may not rest solely in the material itself. The teacher must recognize the learning style and help the student understand their choice of learning style can help optimize both instruction and learning.

Taking all these facts into consideration, the study reported in this article has been designed to provide baseline data for future research on the perceptual learning style preferences and awareness of Bahçeşehir University Prep School Young Adult ESL students.

Method

In this study an interview was conducted as a qualitative data collection technique and a VARK inventory was used as a quantitative data collection technique.

Subjects / sampling

Subjects are 10 students who graduated from state high schools. These students did not have prep class education in high school, yet it is their second year at Prep school of Bahçeşehir University. Students are repeating prep class this year again. 8 of the samples are male and 2 of them are female. All ten of the subjects are in A2 module class and this is their 4th week in pre-intermediate level. They had attended this module last year too. They are mostly 17 or 18 years old. These students are in fact below the standards of A2 module due to their fossilized learning which may result from negative L1 transfer during their EFL education.

Data collection instruments

In this study an interview and a learning styles inventory which was adopted from Educational Research, Vol. 49, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 51 – 63 ‘ Evaluating the reliability and validity of a learning styles inventory: a classroom-based study’ by Nicola Slack and Brahm Norwich, University of Exeter, UK was used. This inventory focused on visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic styles which are perceptual type of styles. There are eighteen statements for each style and pupils had to respond by marking ‘x’ for the statements they agree. Students were given questionnaire leaflets which they read silently and answered individually. The teacher was in the classroom to make sure that all the students answered at the same time. See Appendix 1 for interview questions and Appendix 2 for inventory questions.

The study was conducted first by the researcher, and then the class teacher in one of the A2 level classes of prep school at Bahçeşehir University. The all understood English instructions, and so they did not have any difficulty while they were answering the questions. Before the interview and the questionnaire were applied their reliability had been judged in terms of the extent to which the statements are relating to their correlation and consistency.

Data collection procedures

The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, the students’ awareness of their own learning styles was determined by an interview which had 7 open ended questions. Before this questionnaire was applied a pilot study was conducted to check its reliability with a group of teachers who could help to pilot this study. In the second stage based on the findings of the interview, students were given a VARK inventory questionnaire which included 18 closed questions. Then the instruments were evaluated through quantitative data analysis means.

Discussion of findings

This classroom-based study has shown that it is possible to evaluate systematically the reliability of a learning styles inventory and to examine different responses to teaching. In terms of the different models of perceptual learning style, discussed above in literature view of the study, this particular inventory includes 18 question of visual, kinesthetic, auditory styles in randomly placed 6 questions for each. The main focus of inventory was on learning preferences. This can be seen in the content of its statements (see Appendix 2).

Before the VARK questionnaire which was adopted from Educational Research, Vol. 49, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 51 – 63 from the research paper ‘ Evaluating the reliability and validity of a learning styles inventory: a classroom-based study’ by Nicola Slack and Brahm Norwich, an interview is applied to students to check their awareness of their own learning styles. This interview showed that students are aware of how they learn to a great extent. In addition, the questionnaire has been applied to prove the reliability of the interview, and to what extent the students are aware of their styles.

According to the results of the interview questions, 9 out of 10 students answered the first question ‘Yes’. Question 1 states that they learn better when they are taught by visual aids such as pictures , diagrams and charts. This meant 90% of the students think that they are visual learners. Question 2 of the questionnaire which checked whether students think they learn better by moving, acting, standing up and using their body. In other words, kinesthetic style, 6 out of 10 students answered ‘Yes’ to this question. That is , 60% of the students think that they are kinesthetic learners. The audio-lingual learning style was checked in question 3; 2 students out of 10 answered ‘Yes’, which meant only 20% percent of the students accept themselves as audio learners. Question 4 which again tests audio-lingual abilities and styles of the students was answered as yes by only 4 students out of 10, which means 40% percent of the students think themselves as audio-lingual. Question 5 tested students preference on visuals by asking ‘Do you like over-projector studies in English?’, and was answered ‘yes’ by all students showing that all students enjoy visual activities. Question 6 which checks students’ kinesthetic styles was answered ‘yes’ by 4 students. In question 7, it seemed that students understand how they can learn more effectively.

After the application of the interview, students were given the questionnaires which included 18 statements. Students read the questions aloud and they were also given time to read on their own silently and put a tick either to ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for the 18 statements. These 18 statements were as follows: 6 of them Visual styles, 6 of them auditory style and the other 6 kinesthetic styles. The questions were placed randomly. The study shows that 60% percent of the students chose visual styles as the majority of their answers, 20% of the students chose audio styles and the rest 20% percent of the students chose each three styles in equal order. In other words they appeared to be, kinesthetic, visual, and auditory equally. After questionnaire session students were kindly requested to compare and contrast their interview results with their questionnaire results, 30% of students had differences in terms of their choice of visual styles. According to interview questions 90% percent of the students had thought they could learn better by visuals, yet the results of the questionnaire showed 27% percent of difference, as only %60 percent of students had appeared to be visual learners, including 20% group who were kinesthetic, visual, and auditory. The auditory group matched its questionnaire results with its interview results. Both in the interview and the questionnaire 20% percent of the students were categorized as auditory learners. Interview results showed that 50% students were kinesthetic learners whereas the results of the questionnaire included only the group which had all styles in equal percentage. This has indicated that only 20% are kinesthetic learners to some extent. The results of the interviews and questionnaire matches in terms of auditory styles, while most of the students think that they prefer visuals, less number of students appeared to be visual learners. Nonetheless, the majority of learning style preferences came up as visual styles, 20% auditory, the last 20% as kinesthetic-visual and auditory in same percentages.

Conclusion and recommendations

The result of this research gives an idea about general attitudes and awareness of students towards their own learning styles. This study can be used for further implications for teachers, teacher educators, educational researchers, and curriculum developers. The more experimental and questionnaire based studies in this aspect of ESL can lead to a new emphasis on professional development in schools and in teacher education. Being aware of their students’ learning style preferences, teachers can be encouraged to teach to each learner; to know their learners; and to know how learners are best able to learn. One possibility of it is to administer a learning-styles inventory to all students and note the preferences of each in both state and private schools. Teachers’ knowledge and awareness on their students’ learning styles contributes to plan collaborative groups; hence the teacher can choose to place a visual, auditory, and a kinesthetic learner in each group and let them divide the work themselves; this may shape learning tasks so that they appeal to learners’ ways of knowing. This study has also proved that students become more confident and aware when they find out what kind of learning style they have. The majority of students are found to be visual learners, which shows that language learning requires visual materials as students learn by visualizing it. As only 20% of students was found auditory, listening activities should be better supported with visuals, so students’ listening skills should be supported by watching videos.

It may also be useful to alert students to similarities and differences in the ways people learn. Learners may want to know their own learning styles, how teachers’ teaching styles differ. Likewise, in this study students were very eager to find out what their teachers’ learning style is and if it matches their learning style. When they learnt that their teacher is an auditory learner, they realized that they are more in need of visuals. Thus, it was the mutual decision of both the teacher and the students to use videos, power-point presentations, and magazines in the lessons; on the other hand, the teacher has realized that students can learn better when they are grouped according to their learning style. In this respect, it can be deduced that performing in classroom in an effective way requires placing students with people who learn the same way they do. Thus, a learning style inventory aids in forming such groups appropriately. Having worked on such groups can also help teachers reflect on the products, activities, or processes which could yield useful information about the strengths and weaknesses of such processes. This could reinforce the need for multiple types of input from all types of learners, hence can lead to more effective lesson planning with proper aids which respond to students’ learning needs.

References

Carbo, M. (1983). Research in reading and learning style: Implications for exceptional children. Exceptional Children, 49, 486-494.

Dunn, R. S., & Dunn, K.J. (1979). Learning styles/teaching styles: Should they . . . can they . . be matched? Educational Leadership, 36, 238-244.

Dunn, R. (1984). Learning style: State of the scene. Theory into Practice, 23, 10-19.

Kavanoz (2006) An Exploratory Study of English Language Teaches’ Beliefs, Assumptions, and Knowledge about Learner-Centeredness, The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, TOJET 5(2), 1303-6521.

Reynolds, M. (1997) Learning styles: a critique, Management Learning, 28(2), 115–134.

Riding, R. & Rayner, S. (1998) Cognitive styles and learning styles (London, David Fulton).

Zapalska, A. M., & Dabb, H. (2002). Learning styles. Journal of Teaching in International Business, 13, 77–97.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Learning Styles Interview Questions

1. Do you think you learn better when you are taught by visual ads such as pictures, diagrams and charts?
2. Do you think you can learn better by games in which you move, act, stand up and use your body?
3. Do you think you can learn better by listening rather than reading or writing
4. Do you think you learn better by speaking and having communicative activities?
5. Do you like group work, peer work or doing activities alone?
6. Do you learn better by preparing dialogues and doing puzzles, or preparing activities by doing it?
7. How do you think you can understand lessons better?

Appendix 2

A learning styles inventory adopted from Educational Research, Vol. 49, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 51 – 63 ‘ Evaluating the reliability and validity of a learning styles inventory: a classroom-based study’ by Nicola Slack and Brahm Norwich, University of Exeter, UK

Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire
Name:
Age:
Date:

Questionnaire statements

Learning style inventory: Each sentence will be read to you.

Please tick the ‘yes’ column if this describes you or tick ‘no’ if you do not think this describes you.

1. I enjoy lessons when we talk about our work and have discussions with partners or in groups (A)
2. I learn things best when I have to get up and do it for myself (K)
3. I find it easy to remember things that other people have told me (A)
4. I am good at remembering people’s faces, even if I haven’t seen them for a while (V)
5. I am good at making things (K)
6. I find it easy to remember stories that have been read to me (A)
7. I find it easy to learn new things when they are shown in different colored writing and with pictures (V)
8. I find it easy to remember the words to music (A)
9. I like to change what I am doing quite often and have little breaks in between (K)
10. When I am trying to spell a word, I find it easy to split the word into different sounds to help me spell it (A)
11. When I am trying to remember something like a phone number, I sometimes make up a rhyme or tune to help me remember it (A)
12. When I am learning to spell a word, I look closely at the word and try to remember what it looks like in my head (V)
13. When I am trying to tell someone what I do, I like to show them by using my hands or body to explain (K)
14. I like looking really closely at things and often see things other people have missed (V)
15. I remember to spell words by thinking about the pattern made by my hand when writing the letters (K)
16. I easily remember information when I see it on a video programme or on the overhead projector (V)
17. I find it difficult to sit still for a long time and sometimes fidget (K)
18. I can understand things clearly when they are shown in graphs (V)

A=auditory; V=visual; K=kinesthetic.

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