Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Education is one of the foundations of success. It is act or experience that has a

formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. Education has

been one of the emphases of the government in the national struggle to meet the needs of

the society. In 1992, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) which

governs both public and private education in all levels stated that its mission was “to

provide quality basic education that is equitably accessible to all by the foundation for

lifelong learning and service for the common good.” The department also stipulated its

vision to “develop a highly competent, civic spirited, life-skilled, and God-loving Filipino

youth who actively participate in and contribute towards the building of a humane,

healthy, and productive society.” All these ambitions were embodied in the department

strategy called Philippines 2000.

In the Philippines the education system aims to provide a broad general education

that will assist each individual in society to attain hi/her potential as a human being, and

enhance the range and quality of the individual and the group, help the individual

participate in the basic functions of the society and acquire the essential educational

foundation for his/her development into a productive and versatile citizen, train the

nation’s manpower in the middle-level skills required for national development, develop

the high-level professions that will provide leadership for the nation, advance knowledge
through research, and apply new knowledge for improving the quality of human life,

respond effectively to changing needs and conditions through a system of educational

planning and evaluation.

A school is an institution for the teaching of children and it is a group of teachers

and students pursuing knowledge together. School should educate an institution of

learning, and teach or drill in a specific knowledge or skill.

Teaching style or strategies is viewed as a broad dimension or personality type

that encloses the student stance, pattern of behavior, mode of performance, and attitude

toward self and others. The idea that people learn differently is venerable and probably

had its origin with the ancient Greeks (Wratcher, Morrison, Riley and Scheirton, 1997)

for many years, educators noticed that some students prefer certain methods of learning

more than others. These dispositions, referred to as learning styles, form a student’s

unique learning preference and aid teachers in the planning of small-group and

individualized instruction (Kemp, Morrison and Ross, 1998). Grasha (1996) has defined

learning style as, “personal qualities that influence a student’s ability to acquire

information, to interact with peers and the teacher, and otherwise participate in learning

experiences.”

Blackmore (1996) suggested that one of the first things a student can do to aid the

learning process is to simply be aware that there are diverse learning styles in the peer

population. There are probably as many ways to ‘teach’ as there are to learn. Perhaps the

most important thing is to be aware that people do not see the entire world in the same
way. They may have very different preferences than you for how, when, where and how

often to learn.

Most of the students want to work independently or alone, in pairs, with peers or

with a team. Students can learn, but each child concentrates processes and retains new

and difficult information inn many different ways and they respond according to their

perceptual strengths or learning modality. Individuals capture and remember information

best when it presented in a step-by-step, methodical, sequential structure, one fact after

one another, little by little, leading toward an understanding of the concepts or lesson

presented.

Student has their own learning style in learning the lessons in different subjects. A

learning style is a student’s consistent way of responding to and using stimuli in the

context of learning. Keefe (1979) defines learning style as the “composite of

characteristics cognitive, affective, and psychological factors that serve as relatively

stable indicators of how a learning perceives, interacts with, and responds to the to the

learning environment.” Stewart and Felicetti (1992) define learning as those “education

conditions under which a student is most likely to learn.” Thus, learning style is not really

concerned with ‘what’ learners learn, but rather ‘how' they prefer to learn.

Since learners have their own learning style in learning lessons, the researchers

wonders to determine the relationship among the learner’s preferences. There are factors

to be considered like the student’s performance which is based on how they prefer to

learn and what they learn from their teachers using a variety of learning strategies.

Students at all levels have individualized learning preferences that greatly affect the way
they concentrates on, process, internalize and retain and new and difficult academic

performance. Gilakjani (2012) maintains that students need a starting place for thinking

about and understanding how they learn. This will allow students to become more

independent as learners and play an active role in their learning (Genovese, 2004;

Gilakjani, 2012). To enable students to gain epistemological access and succeed

academically in their chosen disciplines, awareness of learning styles should be

promoted. Knowledge of learning styles provides students with information on why they

learn differently compared with each other. Invariably, awareness of learning styles

empowers students to become self-directed, independent and active learners.

Thus, the researcher would conduct this study to determine the learner’s

preferences. This would be designed to verify how the students perform with respect to

the strategies used in learning.

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to determine the relationship among learner’s preferences and

learning style of Grade 11 STEM in Mindoro State College of Agriculture and

Technology Main Campus S.Y. 2019-2020.

Specifically, the study sought seeks answer to the following questions:

1. What is the extent of the learners preferences that are related to the learning styles

employed by the teacher in terms of;

1.1 Visual Learners

 1.2 Auditory Learners

1.3 Kinesthetic Learners

2. What is the level of learning styles observed in Grade 11 STEM?

2.1 Lecture Discussion

2.2 Problem Solving

2.3 Cooperative Learning

3. Is there no significant relationship between the learner’s preference and learning

styles used by the teachers of Grade 11 STEM in Mindoro State College of

Agriculture and Technology Main Campus?

Statement of the Hypothesis

There is no significant relationship between the learner’s preferences and learning

style used by the teachers of Grade 11 STEM in Mindoro State College of Agriculture

and Technology S.Y. 2019-2020.

Significance of the Study

The result of the study would help the following:

Students. This will help to be aware of the learning style. They will understand and

identify the lesson of the teachers that may effect of their performance.
Teachers. They will be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses in learning style.

They will serve as a guide to devise better methods that can be used in the learning

process to have better quality of teaching.

Researchers. The result of this study will serve as the learning style of the students.

Scope and Limitation of the Study

The main concern of this study is to determine the learner’s preferences and the

learning style in Grade 11 STEM. As a questionnaire-checklist determine the learner’s

preferences and the learning style would be used to gather the information in this

research.

This study is limited only to the selected Grade 11 STEM of Mindoro State

College of Agriculture and Technology at Alcate, Victoria, Oriental Mindoro.

Definition of Terms

For clarification and understanding of terms related to this study the following

terms are defined operationally.

Auditory Learning Style. It refers to learners who learn best through verbal lectures,

discussion, talking things through and listening to what others have to say.

Learners’ Preferences. It refers to learners’ prepared learning style in learning the

lesson. They have their own learning style according to how they can easily learn.
Learning Style. It refers to patterns how individual develop habitual way of responding

to experience.

Kinesthetic Learning Style. It refers to learner’s prepared learning style in Grade 11

STEM. They have their own learning style according to how they can easily learn.

Teaching Strategy. It refers to personality type that enclosed teacher stance, pattern of

behavior, mode of performance, and attitude toward self and others.

Visual Learning Style. It refers to learners who learn by seeing and looking and must

see their teacher’s action and facial expression to fully understand the content or lesson.

Theoretical Framework

This study was guide by the different theories: Learning Style, Visual Learning

Style, Kinesthetic Learning Style and Auditory Learning Style.

David Kolb’s Learning Style are the one of the best known and widely used

learning styles theories. Psychologist David Kolb is the first outlined his theory of

learning styles in 1984. He believed that our individual learning styles emerge due to our

genetics, life experience.

According to David Kolb, learning is viewed as a four-stage stage. First,

immediate and concrete experience serves as a basis for observation. Next, the individual

reflects on these observations and begin to build a general theory of what this information

might mean. In the next step, the learner forms abstract concept and generalization based
on their hypothesis. Finally, the learners test the implication of these concepts in new

salvation.

Linda Silverman describes a visual-spatial learner as one who learns holistically

rather than in a step-by-step fashion. Visual imagery plays an important role in the

student's learning process. Because the individual is processing primarily in pictures

rather than words, ideas are interconnected. Linear sequential thinking is the norm in

American education is particularly difficult for this person and requires a translation of

his or her usual thought processes, which often takes more time. Some visual-spatial

learners are excellent at auditory sequential processing as well. (Silverman & Freed,

1996) .

Kinesthetic learners are those who learn best with a “combination of tactual and

kinesthetic experiences a great deal of experiencing, doing and involvement” (Carbo et

al., 1986). Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. This kind of intelligence “entails the potential

of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. It is the ability to use

mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements. Howard Gardner sees mental and

physical activity as related” (Smith, 2002).

Auditory learners are defined as those who can recall “at least 75 percent of what

is discussed or heard in a normal 40-45 minute period” (Carbo et al., 1986). Auditory

learners learn best by hearing; they understand and retain information well when it is

communicated orally. They have strong language skills and are able to articulate ideas

clearly.
Conceptual Model

The conceptual model as shown in Figure 1 consists of three boxes.

The left box shows the input which includes the selected learning styles of Grade

11 STEM such as visual learning style, kinesthetic learning style and auditory learning

style.

The box in the right shows the output which is the guidelines in learning styles of

students in Grade 11 STEM.

The box at the center contains the process of analyzing the selected learning styles

which includes the observing analysis, interview analysis and various issues depicted in

their learning styles that have connection in their personality.

The line that connects the input to process and process to output indicates the

relationship between them.

INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT

The Selected Learning
Styles of Grade 11
Analyzing the Selected
STEM Guidelines in Learning
Learning Styles through:
Styles of Students in
Grade 11 STEM.
a. Visual Learning Style
1. Observing Analysis
b. Kinesthetic Learning 2. Interview Analysis
Style 3. Survey

c. Auditory Learning Various issues depicted in

Style their learning styles that
have connection in their
personality.
 Chapter II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter shows the related literature and studies on the Analysis of Selected

Learning Styles of Grade 11 STEM in Mindoro State College of Agriculture and

Technology S.Y. 2019-2020 as a reviewed by the researchers. The following literature

and studies related to this study were presented below.

Related Literature

Foreign Literature

Cindi May (2018) entitled “The Problem with Learning Styles” states the

popularity of the learning styles mythology may stem in part from the appeal of finding

out what ‘type of person’ you are, along with the desire to be treated as an individual

within the education system. In contrast, the notion that universal strategies may enhance

learning for all belies the idea that we are unique, individual learners. In addition, most

empirically-supported techniques involve planning; like scheduling study session over a

series of days and significant effort; like taking practice test in advance of a classroom

assessment.

According to the article written by Derek Smith(2019), “What You Need to Know

About Learning Preferences” the learning preferences refer to how much a learner prefers

certain educational modalities over others, such as watching video online versus in-

person instruction. There is a lot of applicable information we can learn from studying

learning preferences. By focusing on offering multiple modalities, you can increase the
effectiveness of your training program as you deliver training that aligns with multiple

learning preferences like visual, kinesthetic or auditory learning style.

Local Literature

Hansen (2018) entitled “Your Guide to Understanding and Adapting to Different

Learning Styles”. All people approach learning in different ways and from different

perspectives. Most people have a range of learning types that work for them but usually

have a type of learning that stands out from the rest. Since not all people are the same, it's

helpful for educators to practice multiple types of learning styles in their classroom to

meet students where they're at and equip them for success.

Vital (2018) entitled “Discovering the Learning Styles in Relation to the 21st

Century Fluencies: Input to Instructional Technology Design”. Awareness of students’

learning styles i.e., visual, auditory and kinesthetic is as important as knowing their

capabilities on the 21st century fluencies namely information, solution, creativity, media,

collaboration and digital citizenship to fully maximize their strengths and address their

weaknesses. Presently, universities must produce intellectually proficient and skillfully

adept graduates; ready for the challenges and demands brought by the Digital Age and

the curricular innovations worldwide

Related Studies

Foreign Studies
 Liew and Sidhu (2015) entitled “The Relationship between Learning Preferences

(Styles and Approaches) and Learning Outcomes among Pre-Clinical Undergraduate and

Students” in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This study revealed that the learning preferences

(styles and approaches) of the students in this study did not contribute significantly

towards their learning outcomes. Tailoring the delivery of teaching and learning

instructions matching with the learning preferences (styles and approaches) of the pre-

clinical undergraduate medical students followed by a re-assessment of their

performances at summative examinations would be beneficial to genuinely gauge the

potential of these teaching learning strategies. This study should be replicated in other

medical institutions in this region to confirm the findings.

Tomruk (2018) entitled “The Relationship between Learning Styles and Academic

Performance in TURKISH Physiotherapy Students” in Turkey. The results of his study

showed that the Collaborative learning style was most common among Turkish

physiotherapy students. On the other hand, the physiotherapy students with Participant

learning style had significantly higher academic performance than students with other

learning styles. Teaching strategies consistent with the unique characteristics of the

Participant learning style may be an effective way to increase academic performance of

Turkish physiotherapy students. Incorporating more in-class activities and discussions

about class material and readings may facilitate Participant learning, thus impacting

academic performance positively. Another approach may be to adopt teaching strategies

that target the predominant Collaborative learning style. Creating a convenient

environment for students to share and cooperate with their teacher and peers and

organizing the curriculum to include more small group discussions and group projects
may also be supportive. Future studies should investigate physiotherapy educators’

teaching styles and their relations with learning styles and academic performance.

Local Studies

Liberal Arts students in Physical Science have satisfactory academic

performance. Liberal Arts students often learned through visual modality, sometimes

learned through auditory modality and often learned through kinesthetic modality. The

academic performance of Liberal Arts students in Physical Science is correlated to

auditory learning style of students. Instructional development activities for Physical

Science are proposed. Gonzales and Reyes (2016) entitled the “Academic Performance

and Learning Styles of Liberal Arts Students in Physical Science” in the College of

Education, Arts and Sciences, Lyceum of the Philippines University, Batangas City,

Philippines. This study revealed the incorporated training and seminars of Physical

Science faculty. Curriculum planners may include the salient findings of this study as a

concrete basis in determining the objectives and methods in the design of Physical

Science instruction. Policy makers may utilize the findings of this study as a guideline in

considering the educational purposes that science education can best serve. An in-depth

study may be conducted in other science subjects that will determine the learning styles

of students which will enhance the academic performance of students. The proposed

instructional development activities are used by Physical Chemistry professors in

designing their instruction to make students learn not only through visual or kinesthetic

modality but also through auditory modality.

 Magulod (2018) entitled “Learning Styles, Study Habits and Academic

Performance of Filipino University Students in Applied Science Courses: Implications

for Instruction” in the Cagayan State University at Lasam (Philippines). This study find

out the learning style preferences, study habits and level of academic achievement of

students enrolled in applied science courses. Results of the study revealed that the

students of applied sciences courses preferred visual, group and kinesthetic as major

learning styles while they consider tactile, auditory and individual learning styles as

minor learning preferences. It was also revealed that they manifested a moderate level of

study habits and skills along with time management, concentration, note taking, reading

comprehension, test preparation, and test taking, reading speed, writing skill, and

managing test anxiety. Most of the students have a good level of academic achievement.

Test of difference revealed that academic performance, father's occupation and type of

high school graduated from spelled significant differences on their perceptual learning

styles particularly along with auditory learning style, group learning style preference,

kinesthetic learning style, and individual learning styles. In like manner, significant

differences spelled on their study habits when grouped according to academic standing in

high school, writing skills, mothers' education, and test anxiety. Finally, there were

significant relationships between learning styles, study habits and academic performance

of students in applied science courses. The implications of the study can guide instructors

to plan and deliver suitable instructional interventions.

 Chapter III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the research design, research locale, respondents of the

study, sampling technique, research instrument, validity of the research instrument,

reliability of the instrument, data gathering procedure, scoring and quantification of data

and statistical treatment of data that would be used to analyze the data gathered.

Research Design

The descriptive method is appropriate in this study. It is necessary to determine

the relationship of the analysis of learning style in selected Grade 11 students.

Gay 2000 define descriptive research as involving collection of data in order to

test the hypothesis or to answer question concerning the current status of the subject of

the study. Descriptive research includes all of those studies that purport present facts

concerning the status of anything. It is concerned with condition of relationship that

exists.

Research Locale

The study was conducted at the Mindoro State College of Agriculture and

Technology Main Campus Alcate, Victoria Oriental Mindoro, Philippines since the

chosen respondents are students of this school.

Respondents of the Study

The researcher considered the Grade 11 STEM students of the Mindoro State

College of Agriculture and Technology Main Campus S.Y. 2019-2020, comprising of 20

random male and female students. These respondents are the ones who are

knowledgeable enough to answer the problem posed in the present study. They answered

the questionnaire that the researcher gave them which supplies the information that the

researchers needed.

Sampling Technique

The stratified random sampling technique was used to determine the number of

the students-respondents involved in this study. Not all Grade 11 STEM students in

Mindoro State College of Agriculture and Technology Main Campus would serve as

respondents in this study. However, the samples to be taken are expected to possess

characteristics identical to those of the population.

Research Instrument

The main tool used in the study was a questionnaire-checklist. The questionnaire-

checklist has 2 parts. The questionnaire-checklist was constructed for the selected Grade

11 STEM students of Mindoro State College of Agriculture and Technology.

Validity of the Research Instrument

It has been recognized that validity for preferred learning styles inventory scores

are major issues within the learning style research (Cox and Gall, 1981; Ferrell, 1983;

James and Blank, 1993). Borg and Gall (1996) defined validity as particular assumptions

made from test scores that are appropriate, meaningful, and useful. Otherwise they

defined validity as “the appropriateness, meaningfulness, and usefulness of specific

inferences made from test scores” in testing.

The inventory of preferred learning style questionnaire-checklist was used to

measure the three domains of visual, kinesthetic and auditory learning styles for the

study, the preferred learning styles of the students and the teacher’s strategies that

students prefer. The part of the questionnaire was developed by the researcher in

gathering the data needed in determining the relationship of the learners preference. The

set of questionnaire-checklist is the student profile such as age, gender, section, and

school.

Part I of the questionnaire-checklist contains the personal information about the

selected Grade 11 STEM students which include the age, gender, section, and school.

Part II pertains to the learner’s preferences this part is subdivided into two;

Part II- A contains several situational statements in order to ascertain the student’s

preferences in learning.
 Part II- B and C consist of teacher’s actualities and teaching strategies that

students prefer.

The indicator in Part II of each set of questionnaire were rated using the following

rating scale with the corresponding verbal interpretation;

4.21- 5.00 Always/ Strongly Agree/ Very Large Extent

3.41- 4.20 Often/ Agree/ Large Extent

2.61- 3.40 Sometimes/ Moderately Agree/ Moderate Extent

1.81- 2.60 Seldom/ Disagree/ Limited Extent

1.00- 1.80 Never/ Strongly Disagree/ Low Extent

Reliability of the Instrument

To test for the reliability, the questionnaire-checklist was distributed to the twenty

(20) selected Grade 11 STEM students

Data Gathering Procedure

The original title of this study proposed by the researchers was checked, revised

and re- checked by the research adviser to maintain conformity on the subject of research.

A questionnaire-checklist that aimed to draw out proper responses to the

objectives of this study will be constructed. This questionnaire-checklist was presented,

analyzed and checked by the researchers’ adviser.

 The permit to conduct the research and study on the subject school was secured

from the Subject Adviser in English for Academic Purposes of the Mindoro State College

of Agriculture and Technology Main Campus which was attach to letter request was sent

to the advisers of the selected students to obtain their learners’ preferences. The

researchers administered the questionnaire and with the help of some friends, retrieved

the accomplished questionnaire.

The data gathered were checked, tabulated and analyzed using the statistical tools

described in this chapter.

The significant findings of the study were presented to the concerned advisers and

other school authorities.

Scoring and Quantification of Data

Statistical Treatment of Data

The data gathered were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted using the following

statistical tools.

Analysis Statistical Tools

1. Profile of selected Grade 11 Frequency, Percentage and Rank

STEM students Distribution

2. Extent of the learner’s

Weighted Mean
preferences related to the

teaching strategies employed by

the teacher

3. Significant relationship between

Pearson r/ T- test, Chi- square,
the students preferences and
Probability
students profile.

4. Significant relationship between Pearson r/ T- test, Chi- square,

the learner’s preferences and Probability

teaching strategies.
 Bibliography

A. Articles

Blackmore, Jill. (1996) Doing 'Emotional Labour' in the Education Market Place: stories

from the field of women in management. Deakin University, Australia.

Chau, May Ying. (2016). Connecting Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences

Theories Through Learning Strategies: An Online Tutorial for Library Instruction:

Associate Professor/Agricultural Sciences Reference Librarian The Valley Library,

Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon USA.

Genovese, Eugene. (2004). The Index of Learning Styles: An investigation of its

reliability and concurrent validity with preference test. Individual Differences Research,

2(3), 169-174.

Gilakjani, Abbas, P. (2012). Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic Learning Styles and Their

Impacts on English Language Teaching. Department of English Language Translation,

Islamic Azad University of Lahijan, Iran.

Gonzales, Maria and Reyes Paz. (2016). Academic Performance and Learning Styles of

Liberal Arts Students in Physical Science. College of Education, Arts and Sciences,

Lyceum of the Philippines University, Batangas City, Philippines.

Hansen, Brianna. (2018). Your Guide to Understanding and Adapting to Different

Learning Styles.
Keefe, James M. (1979). Learning Style: An overview. In NASSP's Student learning

styles: Diagnosing and prescribing programs (pp. 1-17). Reston, VA: National

Association of Secondary School.

Kemp, Jerrold E., Morrison, Gary R., and Ross, Steven M. (1998). Designing effective

instruction (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Liew, Siaw Cheok and Sidhu, Jagmohni. (2015). The Relationship between Learning

Preferences (Styles and Approaches) and Learning Outcomes among Pre-Clinical

Undergraduate and Students. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Magulod, Gilbert. (2018). Learning Styles, Study Habits and Academic Performance of

Filipino University Students in Applied Science Courses: Implications for Instruction.

Cagayan State University at Lasam, Philippines.

May, Cindi. (2018). The Problem with Learning Styles.

Smith, Derek. (2019). What You Need to Know About Learning Preferences.

Stewart, Karen L., & Felicetti, Linda, A. (1992). Learning styles of marketing majors.

Educational Research Quarterly, 15(2), 15-23.

Vital, Vicky. (2018). Discovering the Learning Styles in Relation to the 21st Century

Fluencies: Input to Instructional Technology Design.

B. Internet Source

Learning preferences
https://www.bizlibrary.com/article/learning-preferences/

Problems with Learning Styles

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-learning-styles/

The Three Major Types of Learning Styles

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272662421_Visual_Auditory_Kinaesthetic_Lea

rning_Styles_and_Their_Impacts_on_English_Language_Teaching

Theory of Learning Style

https://www.verywellmind.com/kolbs-learning-styles-2795155

https://www.libres-ejournal.info/843/