Exploratory Examination of Relationships between Learning Styles and Creative Thinking in Math Students

Abstract

It is believed that identifying any strong relationships between learning styles and creative thinking within the context of the math classroom will help improve instruction by providing course delivery strategies tailored to different learning preferences and promotion of creative thinking. Thus, the purpose of the current study is to identify which (if any) of the cognitive learning dimensions would be related to creative thinking in math students. The major findings of this study indicate that creative thinking, assessed by RAT, and learning preferences, evaluated by ILS, are not highly correlated. Over all, students in this study show a balanced learning preference across four dimensions. In summary, this study directs a possible path for future researchers to investigate this phenomenon.