How the 7th grade students perceive the electronic portfolios as according to their learning styles

The intended purpose of this research study is to find out how the attitudes of 7th graders with different learning styles differ about the process of preparing an electronic portfolio. The research study was conducted using the case study method. Research data was collected from various sources including Learning Styles Scales, the Personal Information Forms, the student logs, researcher?s diary, video recordings, semi-structured interviews and electronic portfolios. The study was carried out with thirty five students studying in classroom 7/C at Ülkü Elementary School during the academic year 2009-2010, research data of nine students out of these thirty five were examined in-depth. The selection of these nine students was based on the scores they received from the ?Learning Styles Scales? test that was administered at the beginning of the research study. The findings of the study revealed that even though the students had lack of enthusiasm towards creating an electronic portfolio in the beginning, their views have evolved during the process and they started to view it as exciting and fun. The study also showed the students started to think of the process as effective in teaching them new information.The students identified the intense use of computers as the most obvious difference in the process of preparing an electronic portfolio. This difference is highlighted by all the visual and kinesthetic learners, but only one of the auditory learners stressed this fact. It has been observed that the students perceived helping each other, doing different activities and team work as the other differences. Only mutuaL difference pointed out by all the learners from the three learning styles is that they had fun during the process. The students indicated that they liked various aspects of the electronic portfolio preparation process. Specifically, they liked that the process enabled them to present themselves, to have a say over the content, to conduct research, to gain new information, to have fun and to review previous knowledge. The students did not like that they had to express themselves and that some of the content was entertaining. They also indicated that they did not like the process take long and the problems caused due to the lack of information. It has been observed that the most common problems experienced in the development stage of the process of preparing an electronic portfolio were caused by the lack of information, followed by the problems caused due to the length of the study and problems related to the combining of the work produced by different students. The students who indicated to have problems due to the lack of information did not belong to one specific learning style, but this problem has been expressed by learners belonging to all three different learning styles. It was observed that the methods that were used by the students in solving the problems faced during the process vary depending on the activity. The students prefer to seek help in some activities whereas they prefer to solve the problem on their own in some other activity. It is thought that these preferences are determined by the specific activity not by the learning styles. Comparing the performances of the students, it has been observed that visual learners exhibited the highest performance. Visual learners are followed by kinesthetic learners who are followed by auditory learners.