Learning Style Preferences among College Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine what factors other than individual preferences affect undergraduate students’ learning style preferences, if learning style is influenced by gender, age, college affiliation and/or type of activities. A total of 185 students from the University of Bahrain, Bahrain, participated in an online VARK (Visual, Aural, Read/Write and Kinesthetic) for younger people questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 16 items about learning style preferences and three about participants’ demographics. The results showed that participants generally preferred multi-modular learning style with both kinesthetic and visual learning styling being most preferred while Reading/Writing was the least preferred. Furthermore, there were statistically significant differences between students learning styles based on age and gender, but it was a moderate difference. What mostly affected the preferences, however, was the type of activities or tasks, something which in turn resulted in some difference among colleges. This suggests that VARK preferences need to be related to activity type rather than be observed at individual reference. Recommendations were provided at the end of the study.