Discovering the Learning Styles in Relation to the 21st Century Fluencies: Input to Instructional Technology Design

摘要

Awareness of students’ learning styles i.e., visual, auditory and kinesthetic is as important as knowing their capabilities on the 21st century fluencies namely information, solution, creativity, media, collaboration and digital citizenship to fully maximize their strengths andaddress their weaknesses. Presently, universities must produce intellectually proficient and skillfully adept graduates; ready for the challenges and demands brought by the Digital Age and the curricular innovations worldwide. The study attempted to determine the relationship between the learningstyles and the 21st century fluencies. It utilized the descriptive-correlational method. A 554-sample sized college students were the respondents of the study. The instrument used was a standardized questionnaire on learning styles and a researcher-made questionnaire on fluencies validatedby three research experts. Data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics i.e., frequency, mean, percentage and Pearson-R. Most students preferred visual and auditory learning styles over the kinesthetic learning style. The most preferred is the visual learning style. Students have high21st century fluencies but not very highly fluent. A significant relationship between the learning styles and the 21st century fluencies exists. It is concluded that teachers must provide greater opportunities to maximize the learning competencies under the 21st century fluencies to betterrespond to diverse students of different learning styles. Students must be exposed to blended learning and face-to-face environments. An instructional design is proposed for the students to be very highly fluent.