Learning-style perceptual preferences of Bruneian students.

Abstract

This manuscript describes a comprehensive research project in which the teaching styles of 22 Bruneian primary- and 185 secondary-school teachers were compared with the learning styles of their respective primary (n = 282) and secondary (n=755) students. The teachers' teaching styles narrowly ranged from Somewhat Traditional to Traditional, two classifications on the Teaching Style Inventory (Dunn & Dunn, 1993), indicating that they frequently taught through lectures and required readings. In contrast, their students evidenced a wide range of perceptual preferences that extended from extremely low-, to only peripheral-, to integrated- to extremely-high auditory, visual, tactile, or kinesthetic modalities. Those findings suggested the need for widely diverse teaching approaches.

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Frequent Classroom Behaviors: What Learning Styles Do They Suggest?

Miss Fauziah's eyes scanned her students' faces and although several seemed engrossed in what she was teaching: Ahmad was staring through the window at the children engaged in morning exercises in the school courtyard;

* Rosnah was tapping her foot, shifting in her seat, and periodically changing positions from upright to sprawl;

* Lina was drawing the monkey her father had given her for her tenth birthday last week; and

* Rana's eyes were dangerously close to closing.

Miss Fauziah stopped the lesson and spoke softly. "Ahmad, the information you need to learn is not outside in the courtyard. Rosnah, sit still and pay attention to the lesson! Lina, you are not supposed to draw as I lecture! Rana, when did you go to sleep last night?" The teacher's eyes reflected her disappointment with these distracted students. "Children, it is important that you learn this material or you will never pass the examinations and go on to high school! You must pay attention to every word!"

Teachers' Teaching Styles and Students' Perceptual Preferences

The teaching style most frequently used in traditional classrooms often is described as talk and chalk. In Brunei, most teachers teach by talk and chalk; we lecture, involve students in discussions, and write notes on the board. For most of teaching years, our children were expected to listen and memorize new and difficult information that they later were required to recall on a test. We have learned that many of our young children cannot do that. They are not auditory learners (Dunn, Thies, & Honigsfeld, 2001; Pengiran-Jadid, 1998).

Auditory students can remember at least three-quarters of what they hear in a normal 40- to 50-minute class period. Students, who are not auditory, remember little of what they hear unless they take notes or are very interested in the subject or topic (Dunn & Dunn, 1992, 1993; Dunn, Dunn, & Perrin, 1994). Visual learners remember three-quarters of what they read and then need to use the new information creatively, by writing a poem or skit, or developing a crossword puzzle based on what they have been taught. Visual learners extract meaning from books, transparencies, charts, films, videotapes, movies, and so forth.

Tactual learners learn well with manipulatives such as Electroboards, Flip Chutes, Pic-A-Holes, and Task Cards (Dunn and Dunn, 1992, 1993; Dunn, Dunn, & Perrin, 1994). They then need to use the information they learned in a creative way by making something new. Kinesthetic learners learn while actively moving--with Floor Games, role-playing, drama, dance, band, athletics, or on-the-job assignments.

Research Concerning Perceptual Preferences/Strengths

Many researchers have documented the statistically higher standardized achievement-and attitude-test scores of underachievers and Special Education students after they were introduced to new and difficult academic information tactually or kinesthetically. Those findings were documented with elementary, middle school, high school, and adult students (Dunn & DeBello, 1999; Dunn, Thies, & Honigsfeld, 2001). Each of the researchers reported essentially similar data: when previously failing students were taught through tactual and kinesthetic instructional resources, their achievement increased at statistically higher levels (p<.01 to p.001) and their attitudes toward the subject they were studying were significantly improved (Dunn & DeBello, 1999). Furthermore, when new content then was reinforced through learners' secondary or tertiary perceptual preferences, they achieved significantly better than when it only was introduced correctly--an additional p<.05. In addition, adult learners who were required to reinforce newly-learned information by tactually creating a poem, game, tactual resources, crossword puzzle, or other original activity, retained statistically more (p< .001) than when they reinforced the content with written answers or notations (Raupers, 2000-2001). See issue's website <http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/sum2003.htm>

Perceptual Strengths of Bruneian Teachers Versus Those of Their Students

When the teaching styles of 22 Bruneian primary- and 185 secondary-school teachers were compared with the learning styles of their respective primary (n = 282) and secondary (n=755) students (see Figure 1), the teachers' teaching styles narrowly ranged from Somewhat Traditional to Traditional, indicating that they frequently taught through speaking and required readings (Pengiran-Jadid, 1998) (see Table 1). In contrast, their students evidenced a wide range of perceptual preferences that extended from extremely low- to extremely-high auditory, visual, tactile, or kinesthetic modalities, meaning that some learned well by listening or reading, whereas others could not at all, but did perform well through when learning with hands-on materials or being involved in real-life experiential activities. Those findings suggested the need for widely diverse teaching approaches (see Table 3).

Bruneian Students' Perceptual Preferences

Visual learning was preferred by the highest percentage of primary students, followed by kinesthetic, then auditory and, finally, tactile learning. Conversely, kinesthetic learning was preferred by the highest percentage of secondary students, followed by visual, then tactile and, finally, auditory learning (Table 4). Neither population preferred learning by listening; in fact, auditory was the next-to-the last modality preferred by young children and the least preferred by secondary students. These data corroborated earlier findings (see Table 3) in which learning-by-listening was the third choice of primary students and the last choice of the secondary sample. This finding provided one explanation for why many Bruneian primary and secondary students achieved poorly in traditional schools. Their teachers consistently lectured to the many learners who were unable to concentrate, absorb, retain, and remember new and difficult information by listening to someone speak for any length of time. To make matters worse, Bruneian teachers rarely provided low-auditory learners with alternative instructional approaches that responded to the perceptual strengths they did have.

Data also were examined to determine whether differences existed between the perceptual preferences of students by (a) school level (primary and secondary), (b) achievement level (highly performing versus low or non-performing), (c) creative performance (in science, social activities, dance, music, art, literature, drama and sports) and (d) gender (male versus female). To a great extent, my findings paralleled exactly those of Milgram, Dunn, and Price (1993) when they reported the learning styles of gifted versus non-gifted students in nine cultures.

Perceptual Preferences by Grade Levels

All four perceptual modalities, auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic, significantly discriminated between primary and secondary students (see Table 5). Primary students were more auditory and visual, and less tactile and kinesthetic than their secondary counterparts who were very low auditory, less visual, more tactile and more kinesthetic than their younger counterparts. Research with the Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Model demonstrated that learning styles change over time (Dunn & Griggs, 1995). Therefore, differences between the primary and secondary groups may have been due to changes that occurred as students moved from primary school into adolescence and became young adults. However, contrary to the findings in the United States, where less than 12% of elementary students were auditory and less than 40% were visual (Dunn & Griggs, 1995), Bruneian students' auditory and visual modalities were higher and similar to those of Chinese college students as reported by Lam Phoon (1986) (see Table 6). See issue's website <http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/sum2003.htm>

Although data from an earlier pilot study with Bruneian students were closer to findings with American children (Milgram, Dunn, & Price, 1993), Bruneian data also revealed incongruent findings. For example, whereas younger American children were tactual and/or kinesthetic and older American students were visual and auditory, Bruneian data for the mean of the four modalities revealed that primary students were less tactual (primary: 49.09; secondary: 51.72) and less kinesthetic (primary: 55.24; secondary: 56.50), but more auditory (primary: 51.65; secondary: 48.00) and more visual (primary: 58.00; secondary: 55.43) than their secondary counterparts. These data suggest that, at different ages and grade levels, children significantly vary from each other in how they are most likely to learn.

Disparity between the American and Bruneian findings may be explained by genetics. Thies (2000) reported that perceptual strengths are biological in origin and Lam Phoon (1986) revealed that Chinese college students were significantly more auditory than American college students. Although these cultural contradictions are interesting, Bruneian educators need to recognize that the statistical differences between the perceptual strengths of their primary and secondary students indicate clearly that the same teaching methods are unlikely to be effective with both groups.

Perceptual Preferences by High- and Low-Performing Primary Schools

Auditory and kinesthetic modalities significantly discriminated between the Bruneian students in high-performing and low-performing primary schools (Table 7). Brunei's high-performing primary school students were significantly more auditory and kinesthetic than their counterparts in the low-performing primary school who were significantly less auditory and kinesthetic. Being more auditory, the students in the high- performing primary school were better matched with their traditional teachers' talk-and-chalk teaching style than their peers in the low-performing school were--providing at least one reason for their better academic performance.

Perceptual Preferences by Academic Levels

Auditory, visual, and tactual modalities significantly discriminated between the (a) high academic students from the Bruneian elite school and (b) high academic achievers and low academic achievers from the Bruneian regular secondary schools (see Table 8). A Bruneian elite school is a secondary school in which the Brunei Ministry of Education has mandated the enrollment of either high academic achievers or students with the highest grades in the national elementary examination. A Bruneian regular secondary school is one that enrolls any student who resides in its neighborhood regardless of academic requirements; hence, its students are comprised of both high and low academic achievers.

The high academic students in the elite school were the least low-auditory, visual, tactual, or kinesthetic children when compared with the high academic achievers and low academic achievers from the regular secondary schools. The high academic achievers from the regular secondary school were among the most kinesthetic when compared with the high academic students in the elite school and the low academic students in the regular secondary school. The low academic achievers from the regular secondary school were the lowest auditory, visual, and tactual students when compared with both the high academic students in the elite school and the high academic achievers in the regular secondary school. When comparing these three groups of students, the high academic achievers were significantly more congruent in style with the lecture method used in Bruneian classrooms than their low academic counterparts in the regular secondary schools; hence their better academic performance.

Perceptual Preferences by Gender

Auditory preferences significantly discriminated between Bruneian male and female students (Table 9). Male students were significantly less auditory than female students who were significantly more auditory across grade levels. Therefore, female students' perceptual styles were more closely matched with how their teachers taught. This is politically interesting because the results of the four Bruneian school public examinations (Primary Certificate of Education Examination; Brunei Junior Certificate of Education Examination; Brunei-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level and; Brunei-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Advanced Level) administered to Bruneian students during the five consecutive year period, 1992-1996, consistently revealed that fewer male students passed these examinations as compared with their female peers (Examination Department, Ministry of Education, 1997) (see Table 7). This information, and the findings evidenced by the high-academic students in the (a) performing primary school, (b) elite school, and (c) secondary schools provided a strong basis for the conclusion that Bruneian students' auditory preferences, congruent with the most widely-used instructional approach in Brunei, actually promoted those students' academic performances. It can be further extrapolated that matching instruction with Bruneian students' perceptual learning-style preferences promoted students' academic success. Again, such findings indicated the importance of our teachers reconsidering how they teach non- and low-auditory learners. Certainly, teachers need to provide alternative teaching strategies for their visual, kinesthetic, and tactile learners.

Perceptual Preferences by Creativity

Milgram (1993) postulated a comprehensive model, the Structure of Giftedness, to conceptually clarify giftedness and creativity. That model included four categories:

1. general intellectual ability, referring to the ability to think abstractly and to solve problems as measured by IQ tests;

2. specific intellectual ability, referring to a clear and distinct intellectual ability in a specific area, such as mathematics, foreign language, music, or science;

3. general original and creative thinking, referring to the process of generating ideas that are imaginative and clever; and

4. specific creative talent, the clear and distinct domain-specific, creative ability in a specific area, such as when devising better ways of perceiving or performing than were used previously.

Statistically significant differences in perceptual modalities were evidenced between and among Bruneian students who were creative and noncreative in art and drama (Table 8). Their kinesthetic modality significantly discriminated between creative and noncreative students in art, and the tactile modality significantly discriminated between creative and noncreative students in drama. These findings were congruent with previous data reported in Brazil (Wechsler, 1993), Canada (Brodhead & Price, 1993), Guatemala (Sinatra, Sazo de Mendez, & Price, 1993), Israel (Milgram & Price, 1993), Korea (Suh & Price, 1993), the Philippines (Ingham & Price, 1993) and the United States (Dunn, Griggs & Price, 1993) in which creative versus noncreative students differed significantly in learning-style preferences.

Synthesized Conclusions

In summary, the teaching styles of the teachers who taught the large sample of Bruneian students in this investigation were either Somewhat Traditional or Traditional--as opposed to Transitional, Somewhat Transitional, or Individualized (Dunn & Dunn, 1993, Chapter 10). A Somewhat Traditional or Traditional teaching style suggests frequent use of a mainly lecture, discussion, and reading approach that would have been mismatched with many of the Bruneian students' learning-style perceptual preferences--which often were visual, tactile and kinesthetic. Indeed, an auditory preference usually was the least preferred modality of the Bruneian elementary students and was the least preferred modality of the secondary students.

Significant perceptual-preference differences also were manifested among the Bruneian (a) primary and secondary students, (b) male and female students, (c) primary students from performing and non-performing schools, (d) creative and noncreative students, and (e) academically high students in the elite school and the academically high achievers and academically low achievers in the regular secondary schools. Primary students in the high-performing school in which creativity was recognized and rewarded by admission, were more auditory than students in the (a) non-performing school, (b) high academic elite school, (c) the regular school, and (d) academically poor schools. Bruneian female students were significantly more auditory than the male students. Thus, they were more closely matched with traditional teaching used in Bruneian schools. To increase academic achievement among Bruneian students, it is recommended that students be taught through their perceptual strengths (Dunn & Dunn, 1992, 1993) (see Tables 1 and 2).

Returning to Miss Fauziah's Classroom

Had Miss Fauziah realized that Ahmad was a visual, rather than an auditory, learner, she might have understood his fascination with the figures of children stretching and bending outside. Had she known that Rosnah was kinesthetic, she might have engaged the child in role-playing or simulations to better explain the material. Had she been aware that Lina was tactual and enjoyed drawing, she might have asked her to illustrate the important facts of the lesson and share her drawings with the others. And poor Rana, might have been allowed to tape record the lecture when she could hear it again at her best, rather than her worst, time of day. Unfortunately, Miss Fauziah was not aware of the impact of perceptual strengths on her students' ability to learn by listening.

References

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Pengiran Rahman Pengiran-Jadid is senior lecturer at Universiti Brunei.