Male and female college students' learning styles differ: an opportunity for instructional diversification

College Student Journal, Sept, 2002 by Gabe Keri

Students need to be responsible enough to champion the value that inheres in knowing about their unique learning styles. This way, instructors who may be less conversant with the relevance of learning styles could receive education from students who prefer to receive instruction through their individual styles. Further, instructors need to also understand the value in assisting students to be exposed to varying forms of learning and teaching styles to assure students continued success in their academic lives.

Considering the fact that varying course content areas require unique hemispheric emphasis, it is only prudent for students to strive to gain mastery in the use of varying learning styles, and also be willing to adapt to instructional styles, and not to expect instruction in all courses to be designed to fit their unique learning needs. Furthermore, student affairs personnel have a responsibility to assist students to better understand their preferred styles in relation to course elections as part of the academic advising process. Future studies need to observe variations in students' learning styles among institutions and academic disciplines.

Table 1
Chi-square Distribution Regarding Gender X Preferred Learning Style
Differences According to Canfield's Learning Style Typology

                           Gender
Preferred Learning Styles  Males   N   Females  N

SA                          14.6%  45     7.6%  21
S                           15.6%  48    14.4%  40
SC                          13.0%  40    27.1%  75
A                           10.7%  33     3.8%  10
N                           10.4%  32     7.9%  22
C                            7.5%  23    12.3%  34
IA                          10.4%  32     4.3%  12
I                            9.4%  29     6.9%  19
IC                           8.4%  26    15.9%  44

[chi square] (8, N=585)=50.68612, p< .0000)

Note: Preferred styles refer to typologies of
Canfield's learning styles

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