their studies (Tucker, 2007), this research discusses one explanation of what .... argued that cognitive style affects how people teach (Garlinger and Frank, 1986) ...
Journal for Education in the Built Environment, Vol. 3, Issue 1, July 2008 pp. 68-79 (12) ISSN: 1747-4205 (Online)
Learning Style Drift: Correlation between Built Environment Students’ Learning Styles and the Learning Styles of their Teachers Richard Tucker: Deakin University, Australia
Abstract This paper focuses on the results of a cross-curriculum learning style survey conducted in an Australian School of Architecture and Building as part of an ongoing project aimed at resolving the learning difficulties of students collaborating in multi-disciplinary and multicultural team assignments. The research was conducted to determine how learning style differences in heterogeneous design teams might be addressed through pedagogy. We will argue that the likelihood of and reasons for learning style fluidity in student design cohorts needs determining if learning style theory is to provide a workable model for informing the teaching of design. In light of evidence in student cohorts of learning style changes as students progress through their studies (Tucker, 2007), this research discusses one explanation of what appears to be learning style fluidity in architecture student cohorts. If, as prior research has indicated, the learning styles of academics are quite different from practitioners, evidence of a learning style drift in built environment students towards the predominant learning styles of their design teachers might suggest that students are learning how to be academics rather than practitioners. This, of course, might have serious implications for built environment teaching and for practice.
Keywords: Learning Styles, Studio, Pedagogy, Teaching Styles, Architectural Education, Construction Management
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R. Tucker: Learning Style Drift: Correlation between Built Environment Students’ Learning Styles and the Learning Styles of their Teachers
Introduction: Learning Style Differences amongst Architecture Students The study described in this paper had its genesis in earlier research aimed at enhancing collaborative studio learning for international undergraduate architecture students and at establishing best-practice principles for the teaching of group design projects. This prior research conducted a study of the relationships between different learning styles, teaching approaches and cultural systems in design education. The published findings of the study were restricted to discussing: firstly, the academic acclimatisation of international students (Tucker and Ang, 2007); and, secondly, a cross-curriculum learning style survey indicating differences in learning styles between cohorts and evidence of learning style changes in student cohorts as students progressed through their studies (Tucker, 2007). To ascertain the impact of academic indoctrination on learning, this survey determined the effects of other prime variables known to inform learning styles amongst tertiary students; namely, socioeconomic background, gender, and course of study. This paper builds upon these reported results to investigate a question that is central to current debate on how learning styles might inform teaching. In order to speculate on whether and how the teaching of design to groups can respond to learning style differences in these groups, it is first required to determine if the learning styles of architecture students respond to different teaching styles. The hypothesis tested in this study to explore this matter asks: if architectural learning styles are fluid, then is student learning shaped by teaching and thus by the learning styles of teachers? The conceptual frame adopted in the exploration of this possibility is the most commonly applied learning model to design education research, namely the 'accommodating', 'diverging', 'assimilating' and 'converging' learning styles seminally defined in the Experiential Learning theory of Kolb (1984). In this model, the following four types of learner are described by Kolb: •
Accommodator – This person’s strengths lie in carrying out plans and experiments and involving themselves in new experiences. A person with this learning style likes practising the skill, problem solving, small group discussions, and peer feedback.
•
Diverger – This person’s strengths lie in creativity and imaginative ability. A person with this learning style excels in the ability to view concrete situations from many perspectives and generate many ideas such as in a "brainstorming" session.
•
Assimilator – This person's strength lies in the ability to understand and create theories. A person with this learning style excels in inductive reasoning and in synthesising various ideas and observations into an integrated whole.
•
Converger – This person’s strength is in the practical application of an idea. A person with this learning style likes to learn using abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation (i.e. laboratories, field work, and observations).
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R. Tucker: Learning Style Drift: Correlation between Built Environment Students’ Learning Styles and the Learning Styles of their Teachers
Learning Styles and Teaching Styles It was expected that we would find in our sample congruence between preferred learning styles, subject matter and the methods of teaching employed. This hypothesis is informed by ‘matching’ theories correlating learner preferences, teaching and the nature of what is to be learned (Hayes and Allinson, 1993, 1996, provide summaries of a number of ‘matching’ hypotheses and evidence relating to them). Canino and Cicchelli (1988) have also recognised the possibility of an interaction effect between learning style and learning activity on learning achievement. This matching argument is consistent with the views of Ash (1986), Honey and Mumford (1986), Mumford and Honey (1993), and Kolb (1984). Felder and others (e.g. Felder and Silverman, 1988; Lumsdaine and Lumsdaine, 1993; Sternberg and Grigorenko, 1997), have discussed how a mismatch between students’ learning styles and the nature of what is taught and how it is taught is related to comparatively lower motivation and poorer performance. Regarding the relationship between teaching styles and learning styles, it has also been argued that cognitive style affects how people teach (Garlinger and Frank, 1986). As Hayes and Allinson (1996, p. 3) explain: this gives rise to a second pair of matching hypotheses: when learners and trainers are matched in cognitive style there will be a positive effect on learning achievement, and when learners and trainers are matched in cognitive style, trainees will have more positive attitudes towards their trainers. This implies that students with learning styles that match the learning styles of their teachers or trainers may perform better in assignments than mismatching students. In order to test whether this possibility might offer an explanation of learning style changes in student cohorts as students progress through their studies (Tucker, 2007), this paper examines whether the predominant learning styles in student cohorts change towards the predominant learning styles of their teachers.
Methodology The research presented in this paper investigates the learning styles of 152 undergraduates and 26 academic teaching staff at an Australian School of Architecture and Building. It compares the different learning styles of students from two year groups – first and third year – enrolled in three undergraduate courses: Bachelor of Arts (Architecture), Bachelor of Construction Management (CM), and a double degree, Bachelor of Architecture/Construction Management. Learning style preferences were gathered through completion of the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI). The LSI was first developed by Kolb in 1971 (LSI 1) and revised later in 1985 (LSI 2), in 1993 (LSI 2a), in 1999 (LSI 3) and again in 2005 (LSI 3a). In this study, LSI 2 was utilised. Due to its simplicity and the short period of time it takes to complete, the LSI was used in preference to other measures for testing learning styles that, it has been argued (Coffield et al., 2004), might offer more robust analyses (such as the Cognitive Style Index of
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R. Tucker: Learning Style Drift: Correlation between Built Environment Students’ Learning Styles and the Learning Styles of their Teachers
Allinson and Hayes (1996), or Vermunt’s (1992) Inventory of Learning Styles). The simplicity of the LSI was the significant consideration when asking over 150 undergraduates to volunteer to complete learning style questionnaires. Kolb developed Version 2 of the LSI to improve the reliability of the instrument (Sims et al., 1986). This second version continues to be well used, despite criticisms of its construct validity, its response-set bias, its stability over time and its predictive ability (Ruble and Stout, 1991; Koob & Funk, 2002). The third version randomises the scoring items and, according to Kolb and Kolb (2005) improves the test-retest reliability. Whilst recognising deficiencies in the Kolb Learning Style Inventory version 2, it was believed that for the present study this was the more appropriate version to use. This was largely to enable a comparison of results to those of prior studies using the same version, because prediction was not an objective of the research, and because version 3 is relatively untested empirically. Future research, could of course, make use of the newer instrument. There are twelve open-ended questions that have four different responses in the LSI 2. Each question asks respondents to rank four sentence endings to best describe their learning preference. Four scores are calculated using the test key, with the combined score indicating the learning style preference of that individual. As is normal practice in the Kolb model (1985), the axes that distinguish the learning spaces of the four learning styles have been shifted in this study from the zero, zero point to an empirical norm (AC-CE=3,4; AE-RO=5,6).
Results: Southern Drift in the Learning Styles of First and Third Year Architecture and Architecture/Construction Management Double Degree Students Our previous research (Tucker, 2007) reported a learning style drift between first and third year cohorts, such that the eclectic scatter of learning styles seen for all first years was replaced by a range that had predominantly shifted for all third years towards converging and assimilating learning. Abbey et al. (1985) term these styles as Southerner. The name corresponds to the spatial location of this ‘secondary’ (as Kolb refers to it) style in the twodimensional LSI cycle (Figure 1). Our research showed that an analysis of variance results was qualified by a chi square analysis examining the relationship between student year level and the Southern and Northern dimensions of the Kolb Learning Cycle. Although not significant at the .05 alpha level, the analysis revealed there to be a move towards a significant trend in the data χ2(1, N = 151) 3.109, p>.07 towards Southerner learning in third year. Nulty and Barrett (1996) suggest that learning style transformation is evidence of students’ gradual induction into the academic culture of their chosen discipline. The next stage of our research investigated the possibility that the Southerner learning style is that which dominated the culture of the design academics who taught the students in our sample.
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R. Tucker: Learning Style Drift: Correlation between Built Environment Students’ Learning Styles and the Learning Styles of their Teachers
Figure 1 Derived from the Kolbian Learning Cycle and Learning Styles
Southerner Teaching – the Learning Styles of Built Environment Academics To test whether Southern Drift in the learning styles of our sample built environment students was evidence of their gradual induction into academic culture, all the students’ teaching staff were asked to complete the Kolb LSI. Twenty six out of 27 staff completed the Inventory. Of these 26 staff, two were diverging learners, 12 were assimilating, seven were converging and five were accommodating. In line with the disciplinary differences asserted by Kolb (1982), 80% of staff who predominantly taught the pre-production areas of the curriculum i.e. design teachers and historians who largely originate from the discipline of architecture, were Easterner learners. In contrast 88% of staff who predominantly taught the post-production areas of the curriculum i.e. technology teachers who largely originate from the discipline of construction management, were Westerner learners (Figure 2). As 74.5% of third-year students were Southerner learners, then 73% of the academic staff were also Southerner learners. The reasons for the clear disciplinary differences in our findings between the learning styles of the academic staff that predominantly teach the pre-production areas of the curriculum and those who predominantly teach the post-production areas of the curriculum are unclear, but worthy of speculation.
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R. Tucker: Learning Style Drift: Correlation between Built Environment Students’ Learning Styles and the Learning Styles of their Teachers
Figure 2 Learning styles of sample built environment academics Shindler (1998) offers one possible explanation in a study examining the cognitive styles of education students at university. Here, the results of a learning style survey revealed that prospective higher education teachers were essentially of the same cognitive style as those presently teaching. This suggests (Shindler, 1998, p.1), “that within the dimension of learning and cognitive style, the teaching personality is not learned but is in fact recruited.” It might be speculated, therefore, that those who recruited the staff in our sample recognised within them teaching predispositions common to those already successfully teaching in that discipline area. Another possibility for distinct disciplinary teaching differences is that recruited teachers for professional degrees have been pedagogicically indoctrinated by a lengthy period of study in their own discipline area and therefore tend to develop teaching styles with reference to their own learning experiences. Indeed, studies examining disciplinary differences in pedagogical culture suggest that teaching behaviours are strongly influenced by how those teachers were taught (Beegle and Coffee, 1991; Pollio, 1996; Willcoxson, 1998). Perhaps the most noteworthy statistic born out of the comparison of staff and student learning styles is revealed when the mean learning style of the design staff is compared to the mean learning styles of those cohorts that study design. For if a line is plotted from the origin of the Kolb graph (at AC-CE = 5.75, AE-RO = 3.75) to the mean learning style of the design staff (at 10, 0.5), this line first passes close to the mean learning style of the first-year 73 Journal for Education in the Built Environment, Vol. 3, Issue 1, July 2008 Copyright © 2008 CEBE
R. Tucker: Learning Style Drift: Correlation between Built Environment Students’ Learning Styles and the Learning Styles of their Teachers
architects (5.5, 6.8) and then directly between the mean learning styles of third year architects (at 2.5, 8.9) and third year double-degree students (at 3, 9.5) (Figure 3). Indeed, it could be said that, if what might be more specifically termed a South-Easterner drift from first to third year architecture students is evidence of learning style fluidity, then the first year architects in our sample are on a direct course to adapting to learning in a style that precisely matches the learning style of the average design teacher that taught them.
Key: CM = Construction Management DD = Double Degree (i.e. combined Architecture and Construction Management)
Figure 3 Kolb Learning Styles for sample academic teaching staff and the relationship with the learning styles of students
Discussion and Conclusions The research discussed here has detailed evidence of learning style changes towards the Southerner learning styles of design teachers in student cohorts as they progress through their studies. As a large part of design education is concerned with the development of new learning skills and knowledge so that eventually students are able to think and do as their teachers, it is perhaps unsurprising that learning styles move away from the diversity of high school students to the specialist learning styles of built environment academics. Indeed, such a learning style shift might be expected if, as much research has demonstrated, students have a more positive learning attitude towards, learn more from, and indeed, are given better grades by teachers who are most like them (Lamphere, 1985; Lawrence, 1987; Mossman, 74 Journal for Education in the Built Environment, Vol. 3, Issue 1, July 2008 Copyright © 2008 CEBE
R. Tucker: Learning Style Drift: Correlation between Built Environment Students’ Learning Styles and the Learning Styles of their Teachers
1980). Our results caution us, therefore, to be mindful of the words of Shindler (2005) who warns that: research into teacher and student differences suggests that when teachers do nothing other than what they are prone to do, similar-typed students do better in their classes, enjoy the experience more, and are viewed more favourably by the teacher. Conversely, students who are less similar to the teacher by type are less successful, report liking the teacher and the class less, and even receive lower grades on average. Shindler (2005) sees a solution to this firstly in the recognition of diverse learning styles and a systemic approach to acknowledging cohort diversity and, secondly, in common with much other research on the mechanics of pedagogic change in higher education teachers (Brookfield, 1995; McLean and Bullard, 2000; Milton & Lyons, 2003; Smyth, 1989) in teaching reform informed by self-reflection. Other research has suggested that disciplinary teaching uniformity like that seen in our sample may exacerbate the problems of students who have learning styles that do not match their chosen discipline’s teaching predispositions. Perry and Ball (2004) suggest that teacher dissimilarity might result in better learning outcomes as a result of taking student differences into account through diverse course programming, and variation in teaching and assessment approaches and content delivery. Countenancing, as Shindler does, change in teaching to resolve such a mismatch, Perry and Ball (2004, p. 23) conclude that it is highly likely that teachers will continue to favour their cognitive dispositions “unless there is some structured intervention to broaden and further develop other ways of dealing with their professional practice.” Whether the likelihood that students are learning to learn as built environment academics rather than practitioners is a good outcome for the construction industry appears to be a moot point. According to Kolb and Kolb (2005), assimilating learners, like the majority of the sample design staff and their third year students, are more suited to academic research than to architectural practice. In order to consider whether this apparent mismatch is problematic it is worth differentiating “learning styles” from “cognitive skills.” Cognitive skills can be described as – operations on and with knowledge, in contrast to learning styles, which can be described as – situation-specific cognitive skills (or what Kirschner et al. (1997) term learning competencies). This differentiation suggests that the learning of situation-specific research competencies is in no way exclusive of learning the cognitive skills and knowledge required of construction industry professionals. Indeed, the fact that built environment students’ competencies are malleable to academic competencies, towards which they drift, suggests that these students will have little difficulty adapting to the fresh challenges of professional learning situations. Moreover, if a new generation of practitioners are, through innovation and knowledge dissemination, to change ingrained industry practices sustained by existing attitudes, then it could be argued that the ability of academics to shape the learning of their students to that suited to research is a positive advocation for an academic construction education. Moreover, as existing attitudes in practice must constantly adapt to 75 Journal for Education in the Built Environment, Vol. 3, Issue 1, July 2008 Copyright © 2008 CEBE
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increasingly complex construction challenges, then so must built environment schools develop pedagogies that educate graduates able to respond to those diverse challenges.
Acknowledgements Input to this paper by our diligent research assistant, Catherine Reynolds, is acknowledged.
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