Identifying adult, non-traditional learners' learning styles taking online courses and their learning preferences of teaching methodologies at Idaho State University

摘要

The purpose of this study was to identify the learning types/styles of adult, non-traditional learners (N = 113) taking online courses at Idaho State University and to look for any relationship between their learning types/styles and their preferred teaching methodologies. The second purpose of the study was to identify the actual teaching methodologies used by adult educators (N = 5) at Idaho State University.;Three instruments were used to collect data. They were: Bernice McCarthy's Learning Type Measure (LTM), Ranking Importance of Teaching Methodologies Questionnaire, and Teaching Methodologies Evaluation Questionnaire. The LTM is a self-report instrument designed to help people understand their learning types/styles. The Ranking Importance of Teaching Methodologies Questionnaire (a modified version of the Q-sort) was used to identify adult, non-traditional learners preferred teaching methodologies. Adult educators were given the Teaching Methodologies Evaluation Questionnaire to identify the actual teaching methodologies employed.;The learning types/styles of adult, non-traditional learners enrolled in online courses were reported using frequencies and percentage of each learning types/style. Chi-square analysis was used to compare the percentage of the learning types/styles of adult, non-traditional learners with that of the general college population. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare the median ranks among the four learning types/styles for each of the teaching methodologies. Spearman's Rank Correlations was used to find correlations in each of the LTM divisions with the median rankings of the 36 teaching methodologies. The frequency of teaching methodologies used by adult educators teaching online courses was reported.;The Chi-Square analysis indicated that the previous reported distribution of learning types/styles by Duffy (1987) was statistically different from the distribution of learning types in this study. The findings revealed the respondents had strong preferences toward student-centered methodologies and showed least preferences toward teacher-centered methodologies. The analysis revealed a significant effect upon preferences for learning methodologies as a function of learning types/styles. Additionally, nine teaching methodologies had significant correlations within the learning types. The results of this study indicated preferred teaching methodologies by instructors catered for Type 2 learners.