Jennifer Lesh, Tricia Clarke, and Jennie Trocchio Barry University Florida ASCD Conference, 2009

PURPOSE This study investigates the relationship among variables pertaining to the learning and teaching process in graduate level education students.  Just as each person is a unique individual, each person has his/her own unique methods of processing and taking in new information, or his/her own preferred learning styles (Felder & Silverman, 1988). The purpose it to explore if education majors teach the same way they learn.

In 1988, Richard Felder and Linda Silverman developed a learning-style model which classifies the ways in which students receive and process information according to four dimensions.

 Sensing/Intuitive  Visual/Verbal  Active/Reflect ive  Sequential/Gl obal

Why are Learning Styles Important? Most of the studies by Felder and Silverman focused on Engineering students.  Felder and Silverman did not find a match with professors’ teaching styles to students’ learning styles.  Changing the way that teachers present material to accommodate many learning styles, the quality of learning will increase dramatically, (Felder & Silverman, 1988).

Teaching Styles How do we think that we teach? Zhang and Sternberg (2002) developed the Thinking Styles Inventory For Teachers, The Teaching Style Questionnaire.  This teaching style questionnaire measures seven styles of thinking as they pertain to teaching.  Thinking styles: Legislative Executive Judicial Liberal Conservative Local Global

Teaching Styles and Learning Styles: Why is this connection important? Self-Awareness of one’s own teaching style can increase efforts to enhance student learning, (Zhang & Sternberg, 2000).  According to Zhang and Sternberg (2002), knowledge about the relationship between teaching styles and learning styles can be beneficial to teacher training.

Participants in this study included 95 graduate level students from various programs in the School of Education at Barry University. According to U.S. News & World Report (2009), Barry University, Miami Shores, Florida was ranked 11 th (Diversity index-.64) among best colleges for racial diversity.

_____________________________________________________ _________________________n__________%________________ Gender Female Male Ethnic Group Black Hispanic White Other ______________________________________________________ Demographic Information

Demographic Information cont. _______________________________________________ _____________________ _n_________&__________ Age _____________________________________________

Demographic Information cont. _____________________________________________ ________________________________n______%____ Program Educational/Curriculum Leadership Exceptional Student Education Reading Elementary Education __________________________________________

Demographic Information cont. ______________________________________________________ _________________________n__________%________________ Currently Teaching Yes No Place of Birth United States Other Native Language English Spanish Creole/French Other ______________________________________________________

Demographic Information cont. ______________________________________________________ _________________________n__________%________________ Currently Teaching Yes No Place of Birth United States Other Native Language English Spanish Creole/French Other ______________________________________________________

Instruments and Procedures The following instruments were used in this study:  Background questionnaire  Thinking Styles Questionnaire for Teachers (Grigorenko & Sternberg, 1993c)  The Index of Learning Styles (Felder & Silverman, 1994)

Results No males were found to be reflective learners, while 17.6% of the females had a reflective learning style, x 2 =10.047, p<.01.

Results Female students demonstrated a greater preference towards observing, gathering data slowly and carefully through the senses, or using a sensing learning style than male students (t(89=3.27,p<.002) who preferred to learn by making inferences and creating hunches quickly and not very carefully, or by using an intuitive learning style.

Results Local thinking or a tendency to work with concrete details was strongly correlated (r(83)=.51, p<.001) with having a sequential learning style or a tendency to learn in continual steps. Adherence to existing rules or procedures, or having a conservative thinking style was strongly correlated (r(86) =.41, p <.001) with the sensing learning style; in other words, education students with a conservative thinking style has a tendency to solve problems by means of established methods, using concrete ideas and facts.

Results

Activity

References. Felder, R.M., & Silverman, L.K. (1988). Learning and teaching styles in Engineering Education. Engineering Education, 78, Felder, R.M., & Soloman, B.A. (1994). Index of Learning Styles. Retrieved March 10, 2008, from U.S. News & World Report (2009). Best colleges- education. Retrieved August 20, 2009 from

References cont. Zhang, L.F., & Sternberg, R.J. (2000). Are learning approaches and thinking styles related? A study in two Chinese populations. The Journal of Psychology, 13, Zhang, L.F., & Sternberg, R.J. (2002). Thinking styles and teachers’ characteristics. International Journal of Psychology, 37, 3-12.