Leadership, Learning Styles and Academic Performance of ...

Leadership, Learning Styles and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Engineering Students in Trinidad Hector Martin

Timothy Lewis

Kisa Edwards

University of the West Indies Department of Civil & Envi. Eng. St Augustine Circular Road 1.868.760.5872



[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

1. BACKGROUND

Would it not be great if every student could operate at high levels of learning efficiency? Would it not be fine if they could transform the knowledge presented in lectures to a form that is ideal for them in practice? Would it not be even greater if we educators of engineers were able to produce in our graduates that most desired of attributes - excellent leadership?

Learning style is an individual's unique approach to learning based on strengths, weaknesses, and preferences [4]; and is a reflection of the manner in which an individual processes information. One's learning style may affect how well one performs in a particular educational setting. Learning style is concerned with the most efficient way an individual‟s brain processes and stores information. This is crucial information for teachers wishing to present information in ways that are appealing to their students and that would make it more memorable. The identification of the student‟s learning style would not only aid the teacher in putting over information but also the student in knowing how to study effectively [10].

It is implicit in most university curricula that leadership is something that can be learnt or at least improved by learning. Nevertheless it remains something that is difficult to assess and it is unclear whether or not good leaders perform better academically or whether they exhibit specific learning styles. If they do have a particular style of learning then enabling and addressing that style should improve the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process. A significant amount of research has been done on student learning styles but little has been reported on the ways in which people acquire or improve their leadership skills or in determining the most effective way of teaching leadership abilities. Because people have different preferences in their preferred learning modality, a study was undertaken of the most effective channels (Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic – the VAK framework) of perception and memory for students who also scored highly on Kurt Lewin‟s leadership model. Univerate analysis (UNIANOVA) revealed that there was no significant difference between leadership or learning style and academic performance of students. No significant association was found between faculty of study and leadership style or learning style. Additionally, the study showed no significance between learning style and leadership style.

Keywords Leadership style, Learning style, VAK, Kurt Lewin

WEE2011, September 27-30, 2011, Lisbon, Portugal. Editors: Jorge Bernardino and José Carlos Quadrado.

In modern engineering degree programmes, a significant portion of the work and the assessment of student performance is done in groups. This is not just a function of resource availability but also because the work of engineers is inevitably done in groups. It is accepted that groups with effective leaders will perform better than those with poor leaders, and as all students normally get the opportunity to take a leadership role, there should be evidence that demonstrates how effective they each have been. This suggests that it should be important to be able to understand not only the learning style of each student but also his or her leadership style. Leadership is taken as the process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective in a way that is both cohesive and coherent [3]. Many theorists for example [1] believe that leaders are made not born. As a result, an effective leader can be created by acquiring the necessary skills [21] and knowledge, and by the effective execution and integration of these into a personal leadership style. This style represents the ways in which the leader provides direction, implements plans, and motivates people. [17] and [11] has pointed out that people have different competencies and learn in different ways and that one approach to teaching does not work for every student. Equally [11; 12] has demonstrated that people not only have different leadership styles but also that different styles can be effective in different circumstances. As a result this study will focus on whether or not there is a specific learning style for each leadership style, and whether there is any relationship between the learning style and academic performance or approach to studying. To answer these questions the research investigates both the learning styles (Kurt Lewin‟s model) and leadership styles (Fleming‟s VAK model) of students in relation to their academic performance – the students‟ 359

Grade Point Average (GPA) is used as a proxy for academic performance.

2.

Its analysis is based on real-life situations and respondents identify with the results that they receive. For example, 60% of respondents on the VAK website reported that their VAK results match what they perceive to be their learning preferences”.

3.

An understanding of one‟s learning style [27] and the preference of one style over another [2] has been shown to improve performance of students.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Learning Styles Various learning style models and relationships have been proposed including learning style inventory [7], learning/teaching styles [16;8;9], accelerated learning [30], active learning [6], learning styles questionnaire [18], learning styles profile [20], learning in personality [19] have been proposed. This research adopts the models outlined in [9] and [30] to determine the learning styles of undergraduate students at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus. The VAK framework characterizes learning style as an individual‟s distinctive and preferred way of gathering, organizing, and thinking about information. It focuses on the different ways that information is taken in and given out. VAK theory asserts that visual learners learn by seeing and looking at things, while auditory learning style encompasses hearing and listening, and kinesthetic style involves touching and doing things. [28] discuss the tendency to trivialize learning as well as the validity of the claims made for the VAK framework, in the context of its wide adoption. They show that less than one half the teachers using the VAK approach to help plan and teach, did not know where it came from and relied on the authority, knowledge and say-so of others for their information. The use of the VAK framework was spreading around schools by “word-of -mouth”, and the basic beliefs and ideas involved were consequently second-hand, confused and misinformed. The users could rarely explain how learning styles, multiple intelligences, accelerated learning, and other concepts were linked [29]. [28] further expressed their dislike of the VAK framework and deemed it weak, with little elaboration of design and development, or establishment of validity and reliability. However, despite the reservations of [28] the VAK framework does provide a useful means of analyzing learning styles [13] also expressed reservations about applicability of the VAK framework to the classroom where students with different learning modalities would almost inevitably be found together. There would be problems for teachers to know how best to deal with V and K learners in a music lesson, or A and K learners in an art lesson, for example. [14] suggested that a simple demonstration of the ineffectiveness of VAK as a model of cognition comes from asking 5-year-olds to distinguish different sized groups of dots where the groups are too large for counting. [22] noted that there is no measurable improvement in learning outcomes with VAK over-and-above that accounted for by teacher enthusiasm, and suggested that attempts to focus on learning styles were wasted efforts. This negative criticism of the VAK approach to learning styles can be addressed: 1.

Firstly, VAK appears to provide teachers with a perfectly plausible model which includes a theoretical framework, instrumentation, and strategies and activities to try out in their own classrooms [28].

2.2 Leadership Style Leadership may be thought of as an individual‟s ability to persuade people to accomplish a common goal, which itself implies “‟the power or ability to lead other people” [25]. This research used three basic leadership styles; autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire. The autocratic leader issues orders without asking for the opinions of others whereas the democratic leader seeks the opinions of the people and the laissez-faire leader allows the people to make their own decisions. A good leader should be able to utilize all of the above styles depending on the situation. Kurt Lewin‟s leadership style model was used in this research. In their studies, [23] discovered that the most effective leadership style was „democratic‟. Excessively autocratic styles led to rejection or revolution, whilst a laissez-faire (delegative) approach left people disorganized and unwilling to invest the same amount of energy as when they were being actively led. [24] support the idea that student leadership is a significant variable in predicting a successful career, and the academic and personal development of college students. This study was only based on analysis of 6 college students, which would normally be considered too few to allow statistically significant conclusions for the entire college student population to be drawn. A larger sample would produce more significant results. Various studies on leadership and learning styles have had conflicting results. Research on learning styles has used students‟ performance as an indicator [2] of effectiveness of a particular style, while others [26; 29; 31] have investigated the effect of gender on leadership and learning styles and performance by field of study and course [5]. Cases documented by [32], showed no significant differences in these relationships.

3. METHODOLOGY The chosen sample population was stratified by faculty and randomly selected. Using the student statistics of The University of the West indies 2007-2008 the total amount of students within the scope of this research was found to be two thousand two hundred and two (2202). Using these numbers the two hundred (200) questionnaires were distributed according to faculty by the ratio of the total students to each faculty total; a total of 137 questionnaires were returned giving a response rate of 68.5%. The learning and leadership style questionnaires consisted of closed-ended questions to allow for better analysis. The first few questions sought demographic information, faculty of study and GPA range. The VAK Learning Style model was used in conjunction with the VAK learning styles inventory test to assess learning styles of the students. In addition, the Kurt Lewin 360

Leadership Style model was used based on a questionnaire designed by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

learners followed by Humanities and Education, Social Sciences and Engineering respectively.

The data collected from the questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). SPSS was used to carry out a UNIANOVA (univariate) analysis along with post hoc tests, frequency distributions, bar graphs and pie charts to analyze the data and statistical significance was set as P