Learning and e‐learning in HE: the relationship between student learning style and VLE use

Abstract

The article addresses the issue of whether student learning style has an impact on use of a learning technology such as a virtual learning environment (VLE). It is based on material from a broader research project at a UK university (Kingston University) on the use of VLEs in teaching and learning and explores the findings from the analysis of qualitative interviews with 43 first‐year undergraduate students, drawn from three faculties and four subject areas. It discusses the features of the VLE that are most valued by students (including their evaluation of more flexible modalities of learning); how students integrate the VLE with other learning and studying activities; and the specific ways in which various learning styles and approaches affect VLE use.

Keywords:

• Virtual learning environments
• Learning styles
• Approaches to learning and studying
• Higher education
• Qualitative methodology

Notes

1. These are identified as the principal components of a VLE by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), a body whose remit is to provide strategic guidance and information to institutions of higher and further education in the UK, with regard to the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs). http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pub00/req-vle.html, accessed 25/07/06.

2. The charity ‘The Atlantic Philanthropies’.

3. The field‐dependent or ‐independent cognitive styles are defined as ‘the extent to which a person perceives part of a field as discrete from the surrounding field as a whole, rather than embedded in the field; the extent to which a person perceives analytically’ (Witkin et al., 1977, p. 7).

4. See later section, ‘Print‐oriented learner’.

5. Coffield et al. (2004) provide a useful review of the field of ‘learning styles’ and a classification of the different learning style models into those that describe aspects of individual style that derive from the individual’s constitution, cognitive structure, and personality type, as well as those that relate to how an individual approaches studying.

6. Time constraints meant that observations were not a viable option.

7. Year 1 interviews with staff, for example, highlighted staff concerns over the availability of materials leading to an increased dependency (‘spoon‐feeding’) on the part of students; or compulsion to work on‐screen encouraging a surface approach to studying in students.

8. As part of the e‐Success strand of the study, a questionnaire (LSQ) developed by the ESRC‐funded Enhancing Teaching and Learning project was administered to a large cohort of students, in total 975 across seven subject areas. This questionnaire seeks to identify the approaches to studying, described as ‘deep’, ‘surface’ and ‘strategic’ (e.g. see Entwistle et al., 2002). A modified questionnaire, including questions relating to VLE use, was administered in semester 2 to the same cohort. The findings from this strand of the research project are reported in Edirisingha et al. (2005). The first LSQ, which also requested that students willing to take part in interviews leave their contact details, was used to identify students for the interviews.

9. By ‘non‐traditional’, we mean first‐generation entrants to HE.

10. Grounded theory provides systematic inductive guidelines for the collection and analysis of data, and for building theoretical frameworks to explain data. The main principles of grounded theory are: simultaneous collection and analysis of data; the use of comparative methods; theoretical sampling aimed at refining ideas as they emerge.

11. Based on interview transcripts, ‘overall use’ has been categorised in the following way for all faculties: ‘high’ or ‘very frequent’ use refers to four times a week or more; ‘medium’ or ‘frequent’ usage, twice to three times a week; ‘low’ or ‘infrequent’ use, once a week or less frequently.

12. The very small number of those describing their approach as ‘surface’ means that it is difficult to get meaningful data on this group with which to compare the ‘deep’ and ‘strategic’ learners.

13. Card 18 asked students to respond to the following statement: ‘When you have to learn something new and have a test, is it a) important for you to feel you understand the new idea/concept? Or is it b) more important to be able to memorise and remember the new idea?’