The Relationship between learning styles and learning strategies

ABSTRACT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEARNING STYLES AND LEARNING STRATEGIES Meral GÜVEN Department of Educational Sciences (Curriculum Development and Instruction) Anadolu University Institute of Educational Sciences, January 2003 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Bekir ÖZER Learning to learn is a concept which came about with the concepts of knowledge era and knowledge society. To achieve an efficient learning process, one of the aspects to be developed is learning to learn. Learning to learn is realizing one's own learning ways of choosing and using the appropriate strategies. Thus, the process of learning to learn is related with both individal's learning style and learning strategies. Learning styles may differ across individuals, thus each learner may learn in different ways. Learning strategies, on the hand, are specific methods used to achieve particular learning aims which help learners to find out how and which ways they learn. Learning styles and strategies are two different concepts which gain meaning when they complement each other. It is not sufficient for individuals to know only their learning styles or only which strategies to choose. Therefore, contrary to earlier studies in which learning styles and strategies were considered separate, recent studies investigate learning styles and strategies together. The focus of recent studies are then on which strategies are suitable for which learning styles. Although the results of such studies give clues about which learning strategies learners use based on their learning styles, they cannot be considered conclusive. Thus, there is a need for such studies to be conducted. The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between learning styles and learning strategies by investigating which learning styles prefer which learning strategies. This study was carried out by the use of singular and correlational model. 27130 students who were studying in 36 high school institutions in Eskişehir in the era 2002 - 2003 academic year comprises the population of the research. The sample consists of 880 highschool students from 9 high schools in Eskişehir of which were 4 general, 2 Anadolu + science and 3 vocational high schools. Data were collected by means of "Personal Information", "Kolb Learning Styles Inventory" and "Learning Strategies Determining Scale". Statistical analysis of the data were carried out by SPSS. In the data analysis, "numbers and percentages", "chi-square (x2)", and "arithmethic mean and standart deviation" for numerical comparisons; "t tests" for the comparison of 2 groups; "one way anova" for the comparison of more than 2 groups were used. To determine the source of differences between the comparisons, "Tukey HSD" was used. In the statistical analysis, 0.05 was accepted as the significance level. The results, indicate that most of the high school students in this study have assimilator, diverger and converger learning styles. Moreover, learning styles differ according to gender, academic achievement levels, socio - economic levels and the field of study. The results show that students use elaboration strategies and comprehension monitoring strategies more than affective, rehearsal and organizational strategies. Furthermore, the results suggest that learning strategies vary according to student's gender, academic achievement levels and field of study, but that socio - economic level does not have an effect on the prefence of the learning strategies. The results also suggest that students learn about learning strategies from both their own and their teachers' study habits. Although to a lesser extent, students learn about learning strategies from sources such as books and journals, and from parents and friends. Although not all the strategies high school students use correlate with their learning styles comprehension monitoring strategies and affective strategies are dependent on learning styles. Rehearsal strategies, elaboration strategies and organizational strategies, on the other hand, do not vary according to learning style of students. Thus, as a result, it was observed that there is a relationship between student's learning styles and use of learning strategies, especially between comprehension monitoring strategies and affective strategies. VI