A STUDY ON STUDENTS' LEARNING PREFERENCES IN THE LIGHT OF DUNN AND DUNN MODEL

摘要

Study of learning involves investigation of the ways an individual perceives and processes information. People perceive and gain knowledge differently; they think and act on ideas differently. A large number of learning preferences have been identified in psychological literature but the focus of this study was on visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning preferences of college students as given in Dunn and Dunn model and their difference in gender, area of study and their relationship with academic achievement of students. Objectives of the study were: a) to measure college students' learning preferences, b) to examine the difference between gender and learning preferences of students, c) to find out the difference between area of study and learning preferences of students, d) to explore the difference between high achievers and low achievers in their preferences for learning, e) to explore relationship between students' learning preferences and their academic achievement. As the study dealt with college students' learning preferences and their difference in the context of gender, area of study and relationship with academic achievement, therefore the nature of the study was quantitative, descriptive and correlational. All (male and female, science and arts) students who had passed Intermediate examination (F.A./F.Sc.) and currently enrolled/studying in B.A./B.Sc. and BS programmes of all public sector colleges of Punjab province constituted the population of the study. Punjab province was divided in three different regions, viz., are North Punjab, Central Punjab and South Punjab. The study sample was delimited to six districts of Punjab province with two districts from each region. Three-stage cluster sampling technique was used to select the sample of 1200 students. In the first stage, two districts from each of three regions were randomly selected. At second stage, one male and one female college from each district were selected. At third stage, from each selected college, fifty arts and fifty science students were randomly selected. In order to identify students' learning preferences, 24-item Barsch Learning Preferences Inventory (BLPI) (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) developed by Barsch (1996), was used as a research instrument. Each item was responded on three-point rating scale. The responses collected from the sample on questionnaire items were assigned scores and these scores were summed up for identification of learning preference of each student on the basis of their highest scores on a learning modality. The variable of academic achievement was measured by percentage marks obtained by students in previous annual examination. Product Moment correlation coefficient (Pearson r) was used to find out the relationship between each learning preference and academic achievement. Furthermore, differences among male and female, science and arts, low achieving and high achieving students with respect to their learning preferences were analysed by applying z-test and Chi-Square contingency test. Level of significance used to test the hypotheses of the study was 0.05. Main conclusions are that the college students are predominantly visual in their learning preference. Female, science, and high achieving students are also more visual and kinesthetic. Female science, male science and female high achieving students are more kinesthetic in their learning mode. Further, there is significant relationship between auditory learning preference and academic achievement.