Studying the Relationship between Learning Styles and Progressive Teaching Methods among High Schools Students in the city of Isfahan

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between learning styles and progressive teaching methods among high schools students in the city of Isfahan. This study is a practical research from purpose view and is a descriptive-correlation one from research methodology perspective. The statistical population of this study includes all of the male and female students of high schools in the city of Isfahan in 2010-2011 academic year. This population consists of 86142 students. A sample of 150 students has been selected from this population through multi-stages cluster sampling. This sample consists of 79 female students and 71 male ones. In order to collect the research data, a standard questionnaire and a self-administrated questionnaire has been used. The first questionnaire that has been developed by Reid was used for examining learning styles among students and the second self-administrated one has been used for investigating the teaching methods. The reliability of the questionnaires has been examined through Cronbachs’ Alpha Coefficient. The coefficient was 0.68 and 0.94 for our questionnaire and confirms reliability of the questionnaires. Also the supervisor and other professors have been asked to review and modify the questionnaire and thereby its face validity has been examined and confirmed. The results of this study revealed that there is not any significant relationship between individual learning style and students’ preferred teaching methods. Also the results indicated that there is not any significant relationship between collective learning styles and students’ preferred teaching methods. Another part of the results showed that the relationship between project learning style and students’ preferred teaching methods is significant. Finally, the observed difference between students’ average of learning styles and their preferred teaching methods in terms of gender was significant.

Keywords: Learning, Learning Styles, Teaching Methods