Effects of Traditional Versus Learning-Styles Instructional Methods on Middle School Students

Abstract

The author examined the effects of teaching through traditional versus learning-style instructional methods on an urban sample of 105 heterogeneously grouped 7th-grade students' achievement, attitudes, empathic tendencies, and transfer skills in response to lessons on the Holocaust. Dependent variables for this investigation were gain scores on achievement and empathy posttests, scores on an attitudinal survey, and weighted average scores obtained from transfer tasks. The independent variable was the instructional method. The author administered the Learning Style Inventory (R. Dunn, K. Dunn, & G. E. Price, 2000) to determine learning-style preferences. The control group was taught about the Holocaust with a traditional teaching method (lecture, group discussion, visual resources), and the experimental group was taught the same content with the Multisensory Instructional Package (R. Dunn & K. Dunn, 1992). The data that was subjected to statistical analyses supported the implementation of a multisensory rather than a traditional approach for teaching lessons concerned with emotionally charged events. The t tests revealed a positive and statistically significant impact on achievement test scores (p > .001). When students were taught through a multisensory approach, gain scores on the empathy scale revealed significance (p > .001). Furthermore, students indicated significantly more positive attitudes when instructed with a multisensory rather than a traditional approach (p > .001), and performance was higher (p > .001) on the transfer of skills when students were instructed with a multisensory instructional method rather than with a traditional approach. Large to resounding effect sizes were revealed for each of the dependent variables.

Key Words:

• achievement
• attitudes
• empathy
• transfer
• Holocaust lessons
• learning-styles instructional resources
• traditional versus multisensory instruction