The Relationship between Learning Styles and Visualization Skills among Interior Design Students

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine if learning styles were an influencing factor on visualization skills among interior design students. RESEARCH DESIGN: A sample of 578 interior design students from thirteen universities who were enrolled in interior design courses between fall of 1997 and spring of 1999 completed a biographical data sheet, Kolb's Learning Style Inventory, and Isham's visualization skills test. ANALYSIS: Frequencies, means, and percentages were used to analyze the data. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test these hypotheses: (a) there is a relationship between students' learning styles and visualization skills, and (b) factors that influence students' visualization skills are their year in current major, preprofessional experience, and cultural background. KEY FINDINGS: Results of this study revealed that there is a relationship between learning styles and visualization skills. Converger and Assimilator learning styles scored the highest on visualization tests. Year in major and cultural background were significant factors influencing skills. As students progress through their courses, visualization skills significantly improve, and the greatest improvement occurs between the second and fourth years. Asian/Asian American students scored highest on the visualization test. CONCLUSIONS: Teaching methods need to be developed to enhance visualization skills for all learning styles for interior design students.