SoTL Best Practices: 21st Century College Students’ Perceptions of Learning Styles and Instructional Design Materials’ Influence on the Successful Completion of Assignments

Abstract

There is a long history of interest in individual differences in learning styles. Beginning in the 1960s, academic research endeavors began examining the concept of personalizing teaching as the best scholarship of teaching and learning best practice (SoTL). This current series of interconnected empirical studies take a fresh look at SoTL by examining students’ self-perception of their learning styles and whether their perceptions relate to how they learn. Today’s college students are growing up in the information age of the 21st Century. Many educators believe that a best practice is to focus on delivering personalized instructional material through technology. Thus, the current mixed methods study adds value to SoTL research by examining these concepts through a representative sample of the subject university in the United States. To assure the reliability and validity of the complex series of three integrated studies, research assistants were trained by a researcher experienced in experimental and survey designs. Data were analyzed using SPSS27®. The study's findings indicated that focusing instructional materials on individual learning styles does not equate to learning success; in fact, the data showed no relationship. The data showed that a combined instructional delivery methodology (kinetic and audio) had a positive influence on learning success. The findings revealed that explicit instructions with or without audio were the most effective in leading to students’ ability to follow instructions successfully. Managing students’ self-perceptions of learning styles is important to assure successful learning experiences. Findings, conclusions, implications, recommendations, and limitations are presented herein.

Keywords

• scholarship of teaching & learning
• instructional design
• quasi-experiment
• mix methods