Learning Styles and Factors Affecting the Learning of General Engineering Students

Learning or thinking styles refer to the preferred way an individual processes information and also describe a person’s typical mode of thinking, remembering or problem solving. The basic learning styles are visual that uses visual objects such as graphs, charts, pictures, and seeing information; auditory that retains information through hearing and speaking; and kinesthetics that likes to use the hands-on approach to learn new material. Student’s difficulty in learning may be due to different factors including the following: intellectual, learning, physical, emotional and social, mental, environmental and teacher’s personality. This research aimed to determine General Engineering student’s learning styles and identify factors affecting their learning. Forty-five General Engineering 1A and twenty-nine General Engineering 2A were selected as the respondents of this study to evaluate and assess their learning styles and the factors affecting their learning. Based on the data collected, most of the respondents are visual learners and the factors that greatly affect their learning are physical (Health, visual and physical defects, nutrition and physical development) and environmental factors (type and quality of instructional materials and equipment).