The Relationship Between Students’ Learning Styles and their Preferred Teaching Strategies The Case of Second Year Students at Erridouan Middle School

Abstract

Recognizing the dynamics between students' diverse learning styles and their preferredteaching strategies is essential for fostering effective educational process. This dissertation aims to investigate the relationship between students‟ learning styles and their preferred teaching strategies. Hence, to conduct the current research, a triangulation approach was adopted, combining both quantitative and qualitative methods. The data collection process involved the distribution of a VARK questionnaire and Likert scale to a sample of 26 Second-Year middle school students to obtain an in-depth understanding of their learning styles and preferred teaching strategies. Additionally, it involved semi-structured interviews with three teachers to gain insights on their teaching strategies and to know about the teachers‟ awareness of different learning styles and their experiences in matching their teaching strategies to those styles. The findings indicated that there is a correlation between the students' preferred ways to learn and the teaching strategies that match them. Therefore, it was revealed that the visual learners learn better by implementing the visual aids such as demonstrations and charts. On the other hand, auditory learners prefer discussions and audio scripts. Also, read / write learners enjoy learning through reading instructions and taking notes. Furthermore, kinesthetic learners are fond of hands-on activities and real-world experiments. In addition to those unimodal learners, it was found that many students can be also bimodal and multimodal. However, it was noticed that the ARK learner expressed a dislike towards audio strategies. The research provides different implications for teachers as well as academic institutions.