A comparison between learning style preferences and sex, status, and course performance

Students have learning style preferences that are often classified according to their visual (V), aural (A), read-write (R), and/or kinesthetic (K) sensory modality preferences (SMP). The purposes of this investigation were to compare student perceived and assessed SMPs and examine the associations between those SMPs and status (i.e., undergraduates vs. graduates), sex, and course performance. Students from the fall 2009 APK 3110 and APK 6116 Exercise Physiology courses were asked to indicate their perceived SMPs and complete the standard VARK SMP assessment. There were 64 student respondents: 50 undergraduates and 14 graduates (40 women and 24 men). According to the perceived SMP results, the largest number of respondents chose V (36%), followed by R (28%), K (19%), and A (17%). In terms of assessed SMPs, the largest number of respondents were classified as VARK (37%), followed by R (14%), AK (11%), K (8%), VK (6%), ARK (6%), A (5%), VAK (3%), RK (3%), V (2%), AR (2%), and VRK (2%). Nearly two-thirds of the respondents correctly matched their perceived and dominant assessed SMP. There was no statistical association between SMP and status. There was a very nearly significant relationship between sex and both perceived (χ(2) = 7.18, P = 0.06) and assessed (χ(2) = 17.36, P = 0.09) SMP. Finally, there was a significant relationship between perceived SMP and course scores (P = 0.01 by ANOVA). Post hoc tests revealed that the K group scored significantly lower than the other three modality groups.