Learning styles of students attending a 1st cycle leading to a degree in Education

Abstract

Licenciatura in Education is a first degree-leading programme that aims at preparing students to carry out education-related tasks in several institutions under the supervision of a senior professional. To qualify for independent work, a graduate in Education should complete a follow-up two-year professionalising Masters programme. To become autonomous professionals, students need to develop learning how to learn competences so that they can actively and continuously update their knowledge-base and develop their professional competences. The ways people use to learn depends on their learning style. Research indicates that undergraduates in Education tend to be reflexive or active with regard to Learning Styles. If Licenciatura in Education students follow this tendency, then they would be expected to become risk-takers and action-oriented as well as good entrepreneurs in their future professional lives. Hence, the objective of this paper is to identify the Learning Styles of the 2010/2011 University of Minho students attending a 1st cycle leading to a first degree in Education. The Portuguese version of the Honey-Alonso questionnaire was applied to 115 students attending each of the three academic years of the Licenciatura in Education. Data were analysed with reference to the four Learning Styles categories developed by the questionnaire’s authors. Students do not show a very high or a very low preference for any of the learning styles. Most of them show high preference for the reflexive learning style (85%) followed by the theoretical one (59%). Female students may be a bit more pragmatic and reflexive than their male counterparts. The order of choice of the study programme and the year that students are attending seem to be unrelated to the students’ preferred learning styles. The preferences for the reflexive Learning Style may be a good indicator of success in developing learning how to learn competences. However, these students may lack both ability to use that knowledge and willingness to get involved into new experiences. Therefore, instead of just trying to match their teaching strategies to their students preferred learning styles, teachers at both the undergraduate and the post- graduate levels should try to adopt teaching styles able to develop their students’ learning styles that are most relevant for students’ professional lives.