The Main Preferences in Learning Styles of Grade Seven and Eight - Dissertation Example

Academic achievement also comes into play and has been emphasized by Nolting (2002) who said that it goes up when students are actually aware of what learning style suits them best, as well as by Bahar (2009) who further noted that achievers displayed the key traits of independence, competitiveness, competence and participation. Wallace, meanwhile, found that students benefited a lot more when they worked alone as compared to when they worked within a group – provided, of course, that these students actually knew how to work effectively on their own.

Still another study by Yazicilar et al (2009) focused on 5th-grade students in order to correlate academic achievement and retention based on whether or not they received varied educational intervention depending on their learning style preference. This study, in turn, found that said the treatment would have a marked impact on academic achievement among students.The differences between the low and high achievement groups are explained by their differences in cognitive styles (McFadden, 1986; Guillory, 1990; Stash 2007; Liu and Ginther 1999).

This indicates that low and high achieving students differ in the way they perceive and organise information (Hunsaker 1981; Woolfolk 2001). In addition, Hunsaker (1981) considered learning style as part of cognitive style and stated that “learning style, as one aspect of cognitive style, refers to a person’s characteristic style of acquiring and using the information in learning and /or solving problems” (p.145). The outcomes above suggest that the quad learning style is preferred by high achievers, whereas low achieving students are more inclined to use multi-learning styles.

Research Question 2Are their differences in reading achievement of students due to their learning style preference?To answer this question, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) analyses were carried out. This is to ascertain the influence of gender and each of the learning style types (VARK7G and multi-single) on the two dependent variables, RAAF and FT scores. The same procedure has also been carried out to determine the effect of grade level and learning styles category on reading achievement between males and females.

Analyses of variance were carried out as a post hoc test to MANOVA. To control for Type 1 error, the Least Significant Differences procedure was carried out.