High School Students' Learning Styles in North Cyprus

Abstract

The present study aimed to identify high school students’ learning styles, high school students’ and teachers’ awareness of students’ learning styles, and how much teachers take those styles into consideration in their instruction in North Cyprus. The mixed research design was used in this research. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in order to collect data. The population of the study included 9,500 students who enrolled in high schools and 1,500 teachers who engaged in teaching at those schools, and the sample of the study included 629 high school students and 8 teachers. The Turkish adapted form of the Grasha and Reichmann Learning Style Scale was used to gather information from students about their learning styles. Quantitative data were analyzed by arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Multivariate Analysis of Variances (MANOVA), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Least Significant Difference Test (LSDT) techniques. Also, semistructured interviews were administrated to both students and teachers to explore students’ learning style awareness, teachers’ awareness of their students’ learning styles and their consideration of those styles in their instruction. Through content analysis the thematic coding was implemented to analyze the qualitative data obtained from interviews. The results of the study revealed that students mostly preferred collaborative and competitive learning styles. Besides, it was found that students’ learning styles vary with respect to their gender, grade level and school type. Accordingly, female students are more competitive, collaborative, participant and dependent than male students whereas male students are more avoidant than female students. Grade 12 students are more independent than the other three grade levels’ students. General and science and English-medium high school students are more collaborative and more dependent than vocational high school students whereas vocational high school students are more avoidant than general and science and English-medium high school students. Furthermore, it was understood that students and teachers are not exactly aware of learning styles. Besides, teachers consider their students’ few learning styles, but not all the learning styles in their instruction.