Learning Styles of First-Year Undergraduate Engineering Majors at an Indian Technological University

Abstract

Education has been considered as the ladder for the socio-economic development of individuals and society. Thus, there exists a demand for educational institutions that provide quality education. Such an endeavor requires institutions to be adaptive, considering and incorporating appropriate teaching and learning techniques to address changing needs. While there exists considerable research on understanding and applying different approaches to enhance learning through teaching techniques, there is a relative lacuna in our understanding of the learning styles that students use to process information. This lacuna can limit the effectiveness of pedagogical approaches in improving student learning outcomes. Research has shown that students process information through varied means, for example, while some prefer theories/concepts others prefer facts/data or while some prefer visual media others prefer text or audio. Over the years researchers have proposed different theories and developed multiple models to study learning styles used by students. In this study, we attempt to identify the preferred learning styles used by students in the first year of an undergraduate engineering program using the Felder-Solomon ILS (Index of Learning Style) scale. A quantitative research approach was used to identify the learning dimensions preferred by this cohort of students. Based on the analysis visual, reflective, sequential, and sensing were the preferred learning styles for the population studied. The results of this study can be used by faculty to suitably adapt their pedagogical practices.