Learning Styles In Business

What Types of Learning Styles Are Best For Business?

Elizabeth Reeve, Tamara Cooksey, and Gregory Kelley

Northeastern State University, Tahlequah OK

About the Authors

Elizabeth Reeve is a senior in the College of Business and Technology at Northeastern State University, majoring in Information Systems.

Tamara Cooksey is a junior in the College of Business and Technology at Northeastern State University. She has declared a double major in Information Systems and Graphic Arts.

Gregory Kelley a senior at the College of Business and Technology at Northeastern State University, majoring in Information Systems.

Acknowledgements to NSU Faculty Dr. Bekkering and Dr. Rosener for their help in the research.

What Types of Learning StylesAre Best for Business?

What are “learning styles”? The topic of learning styles has been discussed throughout the academic world for several years, but do we really understand how it affects the way students learn? From public school to higher education, different learning styles can be found everywhere. The three main types of learning styles are visual, auditory, and tactile/kinesthetic (hands on) . Each style reflects the main ability of how the individual learns best. Visual learners need to see the speaker and watch facial expressions in order to comprehend the material. They learn best from visual displays and often prefer to take detailed notes during lectures. According to researchers , visual learning improves student performance in critical thinking, retention, comprehension, and organization.

Auditory Learning is a style of learning in which a person learns most effectively by listening to information. They learn best through verbal lectures and verbal discussions. It is very hard for this type of learner to comprehend written information. Tactile/Kinesthetic learners are hands-on people. They must actively be involved in the process by physically touching or moving the work. Without movement of some sort they become easily distracted and may struggle to maintain attention.

As to teaching styles, many professors lecture during the first part of class and have interactive discussion during the latter part. This is an example of an audio/visual teaching style. Another common method of teaching is to provide the students with a given set of instructions and allow the students to work on their own. In this method, the students have little assistance but are able to work at their own pace. This would be an example of kinesthetic teaching.

Having studied the various theories about learning, we decided to connect the information to the Information Systems Department at Northeastern State University. We arranged to take a sample of students from particular classes and give them either a video or a handout with instructions on making a column graph in a spreadsheet. As with most instruction, we wanted to stick to the method the particular tool was geared at for study purposes. When it was a handout, the students were given the handout and only told to follow the instructions as they were given. If the students had any questions, they could ask but otherwise they were left to work at their own pace and timing. During the time, the instructor could walk around the classroom or sit up at the front while the students worked on the assignment.

For the video, the students were told to go to a certain link, and follow the instructions given on the video. They were able to stop the video when they desired and continue on at their own pace. The instructions were not written, but instead were read to the students while the students were given a demonstration to the different steps. This procedure was used for students on Blackboard in online classes.

One of the problems we had with this experiment was the lack of participation by some of the students. This was a volunteer assignment, and some of the students chose not to participate. Due to the lack of participation of online students, we have fewer video samples than handout. The handouts were done in class, although the students were told they did not have to complete the assignment. For this, we learned that many students will do an experiment if given the opportunity in class, but when asked to do the experiment on their own, students may not be as willing to participate. In future research, we will keep this in mind if we want to work with larger samples.

With the difference in responses of the paper handout and the video,