Investigation of the Relationship between Pre-service Teachers’ Learning Styles and Their Critical Thinking Disposition

Abstract

This study is Investigation of the Relationship between Pre-service Teachers’ Learning Styles and Their Critical Thinking Disposition The study was carried out with the participation of 358 candidate teachers- 243 female and 115 males- who were identified by way of proportional sampling from among 612 freshmen students who study in different programs in the Faculty of Education at Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University. Grasha-Reichmann Learning Styles Scales (1974) and Critical Thinking Tendencies Scales by Semerci (2016) were used as data collecting tools for this study. The data obtained by the application of these scales were analyzed using parametric tests t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation, two-way ANOVA and regression according to the nature and scope of the data. In all operations, p<.05 significance level was identified. It was found that there is a significant relationship at moderate level between the learning styles and the critical thinking tendencies of the candidate teachers. Depending on the variables such as age, gender, the type of the high school and departments, a moderate relationship was found between learning styles and critical thinking tendencies. While the common impact of age and learning styles; gender and learning styles; the high school type and learning styles were not significant, the common impact of department and learning styles were found to be significant at moderate level. On the other hand, when age and learning styles; gender and learning styles; departments and learning styles, and high school types and learning styles are taken into consideration together, it was found that each coupling could explain approximately 25% of the tendencies of critical thinking. In the light shed by these results, it is suggested that the learning styles and critical thinking tendencies must be considered together in teaching-learning processes designed for candidate teachers.