Relations between online learning and learning styles

A Review on

Relations between online learning and learning styles

By

Funda Dağ^a*, Aynur Geçer^b

^(a Informatics Department, University of Kocaeli, Kocaeli 41380, Turkey ^b Technical Education Faculty, Education Department, University of Kocaeli, Kocaeli 41380, Turkey)

Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 1 (2009), 12pages (862–871)

Introduction

    The main purpose of this research was to summarize research works which were related to online learning styles which were conducted in their country and the world.They evaluated recent researches which have been done regarding both online learning and learning styles, using documental scan.

    The authors introduced learning styles and online learning seperatly and mentioned that different Scholars defined learning styles in various ways they said that until today, a lot of research works have been done about learning styles and developed a good deal of learning style models. Some of them were Kolb Learning Style Model, Dunn & Dunn Learning Style Model, Gregorc Learning Style Model, Butler Learning Style Model, McCarthy(4 MAT) Learning Style Model, Canfield Learning StyleModel, Silver-Hanson Learning Style Model, Witkin (field-dependent, field-independent) Learning Style Model,Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model, etc. Considering

online learning they talked about so many terms that were commonly used to introduce it,among them e-learning, Internet learning, distributed learning, networked learning, tele-learning, virtual learning, computer-assisted learning, Webbased learning, and distance teaching (Anderson & Elloumi, 2004)could be mentioned.

   They  investigated research works which were accessible on Internet. They scaned totally fifty four research works and evaluated them according to the years, countries, educational levels, preferred learning style models, online learning environments and commonly used research methods. Regarding countries most of the research works in this field has been recognized in America. Regarding the level of education,most of the research works have been applied for undergraduate level  . َAbout online learning types or environments, mostly blended online learning, asynchronous online learning, synchronous online learning, and hypermedia based learning environments have been preferred. Among them, mainly preferred environment was asynchronous online learning environment. Considering learning style models, Kolb learning style model has been preferred. Most of the research works that were studied on the relationships between online learning and learning styles generally preferred the use of cognitive learning styles instead of physiological and sensory learning styles.And regarding the research methods in most of the investigated research works, quantitative research methods have been used instead of qualitative research methods.

In the research works were concerned with both online learning environment and learning styles together; not only findings about the researches methods have been evaluated but also findings about the independent variables which were used in the research works have been evaluated.

   They mentioned that there were two basic research approaches in the research works that were examined.According to the first approach, some researchers have investigated that presentation of learning content and learning tools designated on the basis of learning styles in the online learning environments was a factor which impacts academic achievements of the learner.

          

   In the other approach, researchers have used learning styles as a supportive factor to design the online learning environments for personalized online learning.

   In this article, examples of both of these research approaches have been examined. As a result, it has been found that to improve academic achievements in online learning not only learning styles should be utilized on online learning but also motivation of the learner, demographics factors, teaching strategies and teaching methods should be considered.

Critique

   This article was going to summerize some researches which have been done in the field of online learning and learning styles. So, it could be claimed that they achieved their goal and fully scaned some researchs.

  

   They mentioned that their method was a documental scan method and studing the articl approved their claim.

  

   Reading the title, the reader expected to see a project in which the relationship between online learning and learning style should be studied but investigating the main body told us another story and this relation was just a factor for choosing researchs. This research which provided some statistics is good for investigating Turkey's condition regarding the quantity and quality of researchs in his field.

   The authors just named a bunch of learning styles without giving at least one example for each of them.

  

The language of the text is complicated and included some grammatical errors, though it was published in Prosodia and was presented in World Conference on Educational Sciences 2009 .