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Understanding the Learning Styles of Students: Implications for Educators
Introduction
As education is an expensive investment in the future of students, much emphasis is on the curriculum and values of education to meet the needs of industry. There is also an awareness of the interaction between students, teachers and course materials, but what about the emphasis on the process of student learning?
That students learn is taken for granted because students are assumed to be academically capable of understanding lessons and assignments. The majority of them pass anyway. To those unfortunate few who fail, the blame is on their academic standard or the teaching methods, but what about the way students learn? Because the way teachers teach is best left to the teachers alone, can we allow our students to learn their own way while we teach our own way?
Ideally, the way teachers teach should match the way students learn. The concern of educators should be the students' style of learning. Educators can then adapt their teaching styles to suit the learning styles of students. The aim is to understand from the heterogeneous mix of student learning styles the group learning style so that teachers can best adapt their teaching style and materials to suit the students' group learning style.
Defining Learning Style
Learning styles are characterised as cognitive, affective, and psychological behaviours that indicate how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment (NASSP, 1979). Learning style may also be defined as the tendency to adopt a particular strategy in learning. Most students have a preferred learning style but some may adapt their learning styles according to the tasks. Those who adapt are referred to as having a 'versatile' learning style (Pask, et al., 1977).
Understanding Learning Styles
Elements of learning style appeared in the research literature as early as 1892. The term `learning style' was probably first used by Thelen (1954) in discovering the dynamics of groups at work. The concept of learning styles that has grown in managerial circles was based on David Kolb's theories. Kolb saw learning as a circular process where learning is viewed as a series of experiences with cognitive additions: concrete experience, reflection and observation, abstract concepts and generalisations, and active experimentation (Honey and Mumford,...