Blog, week of February 1
Some Research on 79 Students: Their Learning Styles and their School Success
Do student learning styles affect student school success? This is the question teachers at Madison Academy in Madison, Tennessee, and their principal, David Denton, decided to answer. They approached a group of their students and suggested that they take the 4MAT Student Learning Preferences (SLP) profile to raise their awareness as to their preferred ways of approaching learning. Seventy-nine obliged. The SLP is the student version of the 4MAT Learning Type Measure (LTM) a tried-and-true normed survey with high validity and reliability measures. Madison Academy is located in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, and is an Adventist school.
These two surveys* measure four, very different kinds of learners, different in the way they perceive and process experience and information: Perceiving on a scale from Feeling to Thinking, and Processing on a scale from Reflecting to Acting. The survey results indicate which of these four parameters are most definitive in the individual’s approach to learning. These differences make quite a difference.
Measured Dimensions
Do student learning styles affect student school success? This is the question teachers at Madison Academy in Madison, Tennessee, and their principal, David Denton, decided to answer. They approached a group of their students and suggested that they take the 4MAT Student Learning Preferences (SLP) profile to raise their awareness as to their preferred ways of approaching learning. Seventy-nine obliged. The SLP is the student version of the 4MAT Learning Type Measure (LTM) a tried-and-true normed survey with high validity and reliability measures. Madison Academy is located in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, and is an Adventist school.
These two surveys* measure four, very different kinds of learners, different in the way they perceive and process experience and information: Perceiving on a scale from Feeling to Thinking, and Processing on a scale from Reflecting to Acting. The survey results indicate which of these four parameters are most definitive in the individual’s approach to learning. These differences make quite a difference.
Measured Dimensions
Brief Style Descriptions:
Ones: people oriented, love group work, ask lots of questions about the meanings of things they are asked to learn, favorite question is “Why do I need to learn this and what is its value for me? When answered clearly, they dig right in and flourish.
Ones: people oriented, love group work, ask lots of questions about the meanings of things they are asked to learn, favorite question is “Why do I need to learn this and what is its value for me? When answered clearly, they dig right in and flourish.
Twos: idea oriented, love lectures, ask lots of questions about what the experts say, they are good readers, favorite question is “What is it important for me to learn?” With focused, knowledgeable teachers they excel.
Threes: doing oriented, like being left alone to figure things out. Only go to the teacher when needed. Groups, lectures, not their style. Favorite question: “How does this work?” With skilled teachers who coach them with thoroughness and accuracy, they thrive.
Fours: possibility oriented, enjoy learning where they can envision what they could to with this idea, or skill. Independent projects, no matter how difficult, are their “cup of tea.
Favorite question: “What if? What could this be?” With teachers who encourage originality aligned with expert attention to details, they succeed and do very well.
All students need to learn in all four ways, while being given the right to their own styles.
The 4MAT Learning Cycle* is a template for instructional design that takes all students through the entire cycle which is the learning act itself.
The 4MAT Learning Cycle* is a template for instructional design that takes all students through the entire cycle which is the learning act itself.
Results and Findings…(click the Read More below to see the data)
These are the results
The faculty looked at additional student data using the learning style data as the variable.
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Here are some of their findings
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N = 79. Type One Learners make up 43%, 16% are Type Twos, 13% are Type Threes, and 28% are Type Fours. |
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Some comparable HS numbers
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Moanalua High School in Honolulu N = 1,900: 42% Ones, 12% Twos, 20% Threes, and 26% Fours. West Fargo HS, North Dakota N = 439 Ones, 52%. Twos, 9%, Threes, 18%, Fours, 21%. There is consistency in these numbers. |
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The Iowa Tests of Educational Development compared with the four learning styles student groups.
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Ones = blue Twos = red Threes = green Fours = purple Are the Twos more intelligent? If not, what is the variable here? |
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Grade Point Average data for Ones, Twos, Threes and Fours
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Attendance points sorted by learning styles
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(Tu - Tardy unexcused,
Au - Absent, unexcused) A picture is worth a thousand words.
The Two Learners like school. They come.
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Percentage of Discipline Incidents sorted by learning styles
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‘Nuff said. |
All these students can be equally successful learners, given the full range of pedagogical strategies. The difference is in the way we continue to focus on transmission of pieces of information to be memorized so we can manage to keep our test scores up.
Our teaching should travel the Learning Cycle from
connecting to personal meaning, Quadrant One, to
student readings and reflections, Quadrant Two, to
student real-life problem solving, Quadrant Three,
and finally to student adaptation transfer,Quadrant Four.
All the students need to travel through all of the Learning Cycle.
Whenever we introduce these ideas and findings to students they begin to work more evenly in all four quadrants. They realize that regardless of their preferred style, they all need to gain expertise in all four functions.
Connecting personally to meaning,
listening to and reading expert knowledge,
sharpening skills in understanding how things work, and
transferring learning into real-life applications.
Conscientiousness, emotional stability and extroversion all were found to be key predictors of college success. These characteristics are included in the learning style construct and the 4MAT Learning Cycle. Schools often do not teach students how to identify their own learning preferences so they can understand and work to expand their comfort zones to include the whole learning cycle and achieve high order learning results.
*The Madison Academy faculty are now examining their teaching strategies and techniques in light of this data. They also took the adult version of the learning style survey and are also looking at how their own style affects their teaching.
Other references (McCarthy, 1982, 1996, 2004, 2006) aboutlearning.com
Our teaching should travel the Learning Cycle from
connecting to personal meaning, Quadrant One, to
student readings and reflections, Quadrant Two, to
student real-life problem solving, Quadrant Three,
and finally to student adaptation transfer,Quadrant Four.
All the students need to travel through all of the Learning Cycle.
Whenever we introduce these ideas and findings to students they begin to work more evenly in all four quadrants. They realize that regardless of their preferred style, they all need to gain expertise in all four functions.
Connecting personally to meaning,
listening to and reading expert knowledge,
sharpening skills in understanding how things work, and
transferring learning into real-life applications.
Conscientiousness, emotional stability and extroversion all were found to be key predictors of college success. These characteristics are included in the learning style construct and the 4MAT Learning Cycle. Schools often do not teach students how to identify their own learning preferences so they can understand and work to expand their comfort zones to include the whole learning cycle and achieve high order learning results.
*The Madison Academy faculty are now examining their teaching strategies and techniques in light of this data. They also took the adult version of the learning style survey and are also looking at how their own style affects their teaching.
Other references (McCarthy, 1982, 1996, 2004, 2006) aboutlearning.com
