Analysing the relationship of sequential and global learning styles on students’ historical thinking and understanding : a case study on form four secondary schools students in Malaysia

This study ascertained on the relationship between students’ learning styles, which are global and sequential learning styles with their historical understanding and thinking. The specific objectives of the study were to: describe the learning style of the students which are sequential and global; to find out whether students’ historical understanding and thinking differ with their learning styles; and determine the difference between the learning style and their historical understanding and thinking. The participants of the study consist of 40 Form Four Secondary School students from a National School in Kedah State, Malaysia. The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) questionnaire was utilized to carry out the rationale of the study. The results demonstrated that generally the students are fairly well balanced in global and sequential learning styles presented in the ILS questionnaire. An assessment test of history essay writing was used to determine their historical thinking from four categories, which are a) chronological understanding, b) make interpretation, c) express opinions with a sense of empathy, and d) make rationalizations. The results show that there is a significance difference between the sequential learner and the global learner in chronological understanding. Overall, there is no significant difference between students’ learning styles with the ability in making interpretation make rationalization and express an opinion with a sense of empathy. The results of this study can be used to gain insight into the construct of historical understanding and into how historical reasoning competencies can be measured. Besides, the results present some ideas about information organization of history contents to suit the preferences of students’ different learning styles.