A correlation study between learning styles and academic achievement among secondary school students in Kenya

Abstract

One of the most significant issues in learning to learn is for individuals to take responsibility for their own learning. When learners take the responsibility of their own learning, they attribute meaning to the process of learning, leading to effective learning. The purpose of this study was to determine ‗the relationship between learning style and academic achievement among secondary school students in Kenya’. The study objectives were to: (a) identify the learning style preference among secondary school students; (b) determine the academic achievement levels of the students; and (c) determine the relationship between learning style and academic achievement of the students by gender. The sampling applied was purposive. The data collection instrument was the Barsch Learning Style Inventory (BLSI). This was used to identify the learning style preference among the students based on Visual (V), Auditory (A) and Kinesthetic (K) modalities. The instrument has a reliability of 0.862. The findings indicate that majority of the students are trimodal learners, followed by bimodal (VA) learners and thirdly by unimodal (V) learners. The least preferred learning style is the single kinesthetic modality which was preferred by only 2 female students. There is no significant difference in learning style preference among male and female students and among high and low academic achievement groups. There is strong positive and statistically significant relationship between learning styles and academic achievement for the trimodal learners, and among male and female students.