Learning Style Scale Pdf

[Armanda Kicks]

Studiesin learning styles initially developed as a result of interest in individual differences. These issues were very much in vogue within investigatory psychology during the 1960's, enjoyed a continuing popularity during the early 1970's but have unfortunately past from vogue since then due to our society's changed focus or an evolution of professional interest. (Curry, 1983)

The Grasha-Reichmann model focuses on student attitudes toward learning, classroom activities, teachers, and peers; rather than studying the relationships among methods, student style, and achievement, Grasha and Reichmann emphasize the increased ability to problem-solve, communicate with others, and organize materials.

Learning style refers to the unique ways an individual processes and retains new information and skills. In this study, we aimed to identify the learning styles of Turkish physiotherapy students and investigate the relationship between academic performance and learning style subscale scores in order to determine whether the learning styles of physiotherapy students could influence academic performance.

The learning styles of 184 physiotherapy students were determined using the Grasha-Riechmann Student Learning Style Scales. Cumulative grade point average was accepted as a measure of academic performance. The Kruskal-Wallis test was conducted to compare academic performance among the six learning style groups (Independent, Dependent, Competitive, Collaborative, Avoidant, and Participant).

Although Turkish physiotherapy students most commonly exhibited a Collaborative learning style, the Participant learning style was associated with significantly higher academic performance. Teaching strategies that encourage more participant-style learning may be effective in increasing academic performance among Turkish physiotherapy students.

Facilitating the learning process is the primary aim of teaching [4]. Understanding the learning behavior of students is considered to be a part of this process [5]. Therefore, the concept of learning styles has become a popular topic in recent literature, with many theories about learning styles put forward to better understand the dynamic process of learning [2, 3].

Considering the potential problems encountered in the undergraduate education of physiotherapists, determining the learning style of physiotherapy students may enable the development of strategies to improve the learning process [12]. Studies on learning styles in the field of physiotherapy have mostly been conducted in developed countries such as Canada and Australia [13, 14]. A study conducted in Australia examined the learning styles of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech pathology students. The results of this study suggest that optimal learning environment should also be taken into consideration while researching how students learn. The authors also stated that future research was needed to investigate correlations between learning styles, instructional methods, and the academic performance of students in the health professions [14].

The GRLSS is a five-point Likert-type scale (response format: strongly disagree, moderately disagree, undecided, moderately agree, strongly agree) consisting of 60 items which was designed based on student interviews and survey data [22, 23]. In accordance with the response to student attitudes toward learning, classroom activities, teachers and peers, six learning styles were defined [24]. Learning styles that form subscales are the Independent, Avoidant, Collaborative, Dependent, Competitive, and Participant learning styles [24, 25]. The six main styles in the GRLSS are described in Table 1 and the scoring of the GRLSS is shown in Table 2 [23, 24]. The GRLSS was adapted to Turkish in 2003 and found to have good reliability [25] (Table 3).

The learning styles of the physiotherapy students in the current study were identified according to GRLSS and the students were grouped based on their predominant (highest scoring) style. The mean and median academic performance values of each group were calculated and the significance of the differences between groups was statistically analyzed.

A total of 217 physiotherapy students were invited to participate in the study. Eighteen students refused to participate. Fifteen surveys were discarded due to missing item responses. As a result, data obtained from 184 students were used for the analyses. Overall response rate was 84.8%.

The current study assessed the learning styles of Turkish physiotherapy students, and investigated the relationship between their learning styles and academic performance. The results revealed that the Collaborative learning style was most common among the Turkish physiotherapy students. However, students with Participant learning style had statistically higher academic performance when compared to the others. In addition, we found a positive correlation between Participant score and academic performance of the students, which supports the previous finding, while a negative correlation was found between Avoidant score and academic performance. In the case of physiotherapy students in this study, the emphasis should be on developing Participant and Collaborative learning skills. This might involve providing more class activities, discussions, and group projects.

Previous studies have indicated that physiotherapy students prefer abstract learning styles [28] and have desirable approaches to studying [29]. Canadian and American physiotherapy students preferred Converger (40 and 37% respectively) or Assimilator (35 and 28% respectively) learning styles [13]. According to descriptions of the learning style categories in the Kolb LSI, Convergers enjoy learning through activities like homework problems, computer simulations, field trips, and reports and demonstrations presented by others. On the other hand, Assimilators prefer attending lectures, reading textbooks, doing independent research and watching demonstrations by instructors when learning. In our study, Turkish physiotherapy students preferred Collaborative (34.8%) or Independent (22.3%) learning styles. According to GRLSS, Collaboratives prefer lectures with small group discussions and group projects (similar to Assimilators), while Independents prefer self-pace instruction and studying alone (similar to Convergers). Therefore, it can be concluded that learning styles of Canadian, American, and Turkish physiotherapy students are similar to each other.

The major strength of this study is that, to the best of our knowledge, ours is the first study investigating the learning styles of Turkish physiotherapy students with relation to academic performance.

There were some limitations to this study. It should be noted that learning style is a self-reported measure that can change based on experience and the demands of a situation. Therefore, it is subjective and able to provide adaptive behavior [42]. It should also be kept in mind that the conclusions of this study could be limited due to the cross-sectional design, and respondent bias may be an issue because convenience sampling was used to recruit participants. One possible limitation of the study could be the fact that the three of the scale reliabilities reported for GRLSS was poor.

This study investigated the learning styles of physiotherapy students in only one university (DEU) and this could preclude the generalization of our results. Subsequent studies should include students enrolled in the physiotherapy departments of multiple universities in Turkey to achieve an accurate geographical representation. Moreover, future studies on this topic should be conducted in collaboration with universities in Europe, with which we share a cultural connection.

Nİ conducted the literature search for the background of the study, analyzed and interpreted statistical data, and wrote the majority of the article. MT conducted the literature search, collected data for the study, analyzed statistical data, and contributed to writing the article. SSY and DK were involved in study planning, data processing, and revising the article. SS contributed to study design and oversaw the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Tomruk graduated from the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation at Dokuz Eylul University in 2009. He received his MSci degree in Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy in 2013 and his PhD degree in 2018. His doctorate thesis was about manual therapy. He works as a research assistant at Dokuz Eylul University since 2011.

Karadibak obtained her BS degree in Physiotherapy from Hacettepe University in 1992 and her MS and PhD degrees from the Physical Therapy Program of the Institute of Health and Sciences, Dokuz Eylul University in 1998 and 2003, respectively. She is currently a professor of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation in the Dokuz Eylul University School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation.

Savcı obtained her BS degree in Physiotherapy from Hacettepe University in 1988 and her MS and PhD degrees from the Physical Therapy Program of the Institute of Health and Sciences, Hacettepe University in 1990 and 1995, respectively. She is currently a professor and serving as the Head of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation in the Dokuz Eylul University School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation.

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