Learning styles why is it important

Do Max and Emily prefer to gather information by reading, taking notes and writing reports or essays? And what about Dylan? She is very hands-on, and seems to enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together — to learn by doing.

She may be a Kinesthetic learner. One of the first lessons you learn when researching learning styles is that there are many different theories. These are:. The idea behind multiple intelligence theories is not that people learn in only one way, but that people are stronger in different areas and can demonstrate their knowledge and abilities in different ways. For teachers, being attuned to such distinctions can be helpful in understanding how to best connect with individual students.

There are two main buckets that most teaching styles fall into: teacher centered or student centered. The teacher-centered approach to education positions the teacher as the expert who is in charge of imparting knowledge to his or her students via lectures or direct instruction.

Simon, thank you for your understanding and taking extra care with my son. I wanted to say a big thank you to Skill Hire and the team, especially Wayne for such an amazing experience for our students. All of our students were thoroughly engaged with the course and learned many valuable skills. There are three primarily learning styles: Visual Style Visual learners learn best when they have an image, picture or mind map to help them process information. Verbal Style Verbal learners learn best by reading content aloud or listening to someone speak the information.

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Read more latest news. Join Our Mailing List. Katz and Heimann used the Kolb LSI in their study and reported average learning style scores instead of the number of students in each of the four learning styles. In our study, the largest proportion of the physiotherapy students had a Collaborative learning style. Moreover, the average learning style was also Collaborative, with the highest average score.

Competitive learning style was the least frequently preferred 5. The low preference for Competitive learning style indicates that students were less likely to compete with other students in the class to get a grade. Mountford et al. According to LSQ, Pragmatists tend to see problem solving as a chance to rise to a challenge [ 31 ]. Considering that both Competitives and Pragmatists like challenges, the least frequently preferred styles of Australian and Turkish physiotherapy students seem to be similar to each other.

Wessel et al. Indeed, evidence supporting these views can be found in the literature. Previous studies showed that students who were aware of their learning style had improved academic performance [ 33 , 34 ]. Nelson et al. However, Hess et al. While planning this study, we hypothesized that students with a Collaborative learning style would have higher academic performance. Although the Collaborative learning style was the most common, these students did not show significantly higher academic performance.

However, students with Participant learning style had statistically higher academic performance when compared to the other learning style groups. Characteristics specific to the Participant learning style are enjoyment from attending and participating in class and interest in class activities and discussions.

These students enjoy opportunities to discuss class materials and readings. This may suggest that increasing in-class activities and discussions, which encourage participant-style learning, is needed to increase academic performance.

Another approach would be to adapt teaching strategies according to the characteristics of Collaboratives, as they represented the largest body of students. Creating a convenient environment in which students could spend more time sharing and cooperating with their teacher and peers may facilitate collaborative learning, thus enhancing academic performance.

Organizing the curriculum to include small group discussions within lectures and incorporate group projects may also be beneficial. As Ford et al. The most important reason for determining learning style is to create a proper teaching strategy [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Learning style alone is not the only factor that may influence a learning situation. Many factors educational and cultural context of university, individual awareness, life experience, other learning skills, effect of educator, motivation, etc.

Therefore, expecting a simple relationship between learning style and teaching strategy may not be realistic. Moreover, the review of Pashler et al. The major strength of this study is that, to the best of our knowledge, ours is the first study investigating the learning styles of Turkish physiotherapy students with relation to academic performance. There were some limitations to this study. It should be noted that learning style is a self-reported measure that can change based on experience and the demands of a situation.

Therefore, it is subjective and able to provide adaptive behavior [ 42 ]. It should also be kept in mind that the conclusions of this study could be limited due to the cross-sectional design, and respondent bias may be an issue because convenience sampling was used to recruit participants.

One possible limitation of the study could be the fact that the three of the scale reliabilities reported for GRLSS was poor.

This study investigated the learning styles of physiotherapy students in only one university DEU and this could preclude the generalization of our results. Subsequent studies should include students enrolled in the physiotherapy departments of multiple universities in Turkey to achieve an accurate geographical representation. Moreover, future studies on this topic should be conducted in collaboration with universities in Europe, with which we share a cultural connection. The results of this study showed that the Collaborative learning style was most common among Turkish physiotherapy students.

On the other hand, the physiotherapy students with Participant learning style had significantly higher academic performance than students with other learning styles. Teaching strategies consistent with the unique characteristics of the Participant learning style may be an effective way to increase academic performance of Turkish physiotherapy students.

Incorporating more in-class activities and discussions about class material and readings may facilitate Participant learning, thus impacting academic performance positively.

Another approach may be to adopt teaching strategies that target the predominant Collaborative learning style. Creating a convenient environment for students to share and cooperate with their teacher and peers and organizing the curriculum to include more small group discussions and group projects may also be supportive. Hunt DE. Learning style and student needs: An introduction to conceptual level. Student learning styles: diagnosing and prescribing programs. Google Scholar.

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Ankara: Nobel; Are learning style preferences of health science students predictive of their attitudes towards e-learning? Felder RM, Brent R.

Understanding student differences. J Eng Educ. It delivers information through multiple modalities, meaning learners are more likely to be instructed through their preferred modality. One of the questions we asked Dr. She suggested no relationship between age and learning preference exists! The idea that veteran employees dislike online training, or that millennials prefer online learning to other modalities, is a myth.

Programs that rely on this strategy to determine their training delivery may be falling short of their full potential. By focusing on offering multiple modalities, you can increase the effectiveness of your training program as you deliver training that aligns with multiple learning preferences.