The Pattern of Learning Styles among Second Year Students in Business Management and Hospitality Programs at One of The Vocational College in Northern Zone

Abstract The purpose of this research is to explore the learning styles of second year students in the Business Management and Hospitality programs at one of the Vocational College in Northern Zone, Malaysia. The sample consisted of 30 students from each program, a total of 60 students. The method of measurement used was questionnaires based on the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) developed by Felder and Silverman (1988) that adduce of 44 items. The items verifying 4 dimensions and 4 sub-scales, namely procession (active / reflective learners), perception (sensing / intuitive learners), input (visual / verbal learners) and comprehension (sequential / global learners). Each of the dimensions contains 11 items. Data were analyzed descriptively using the SPSS 20.0 for Windows. Results from the analysis revealed that overall, the second year students of this college are more dominant in visual (90%) than verbal style for input dimension; active (71.7%) then reflective style for procession dimension; sequential (71.7%) than global style for comprehension dimension and sensing (55%) than intuitive style for perception dimension. Based on the findings, the researchers suggest that the college lecturers should align their teaching approaches, strategies, methods and techniques with the dominant learning styles for each dimension among the students.

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