An investigation on the relationship between primary education students' learning styles and academic achievement at some lessons

In this study, it was aimed to examine the relationship between fifth grade students' learning style and academic achievement at Turkish, maths, science and technology, social studies lessons. In addition to this, it was observed whether or not the fifth grade students' learning style changed in a meaningful way according to the variables such as their genders, educational status of their mothers and fathers, and having their own rooms. The study which was conducted in relational model consisted of the fifth grade students who studied at schools that were in central dictrict of Adana in 2011-2012 academic year. However, sample of the study consisted of 508 students who studied at the fifth grade of six primary school. In this study, Marmara Learning Style Scale which was developed by Ö.Şimşek (2007) in order to determine the students' learning styles, personal information form, developed by researcher involving some questions about students' demographic variables and transcripts showing the students' grades were used. In this study, frequency and an analysis of percent were carried out to determine the students' learning styles. Chi-square test was performed to observed the relationship between the students' academic achievement and learning styles, and to determine whether or not there were any significant differences in their learning styles according to their personal information. As a result of this study, it was identified that the sudents prefer sound and low light, warm place, not snacking food, sitting comfortable or lying down while studying, they prefered studying in the morning. Students' motivation level and being aware of responsibilities were quite high. It was identified that students prefered learning with their family, studying alone, using different way while learning and they didn't want any explanation while learning. Also, it was identified that they prefered auditory learning style and not acting while learning . It was determined that sound, patience and choice of learning with different ways were in favor of girls; sound, food, patience, choice of learning with auditory learning styles and different ways were in favor of having their owns; choice of learning with auditory learrning styles students whose fathers and mothers graduated from university; choice of warmth and learning with their family were in favor of the students whose fathers and mothers graduated from secondary schoolor and high school. Besides, in this study it was determined that students who preferred auditory learning and learning with different ways in Turkish, maths, science and technology and social studies lessons; low light and not snacking something while learning in Turkish, science and technology, and social studies lessons; learning in warm place in Turkish , maths and science and technology lessons changed significantly in favor of students whose academic achievement were high. Keywords: Learning Styles, Academic Achievement, Primary Education, Learning