Abstract:

Abstract enDue to the biological and psychological differences between individuals, learning processess vary from person to person. One of the main reasons of learning differences between individuals is learning styles. Learning style is a concept which expresses receiving, processing, remaining and recalling new information. It is known that learning styles affect learners’ learning behaviour. Since learners have different learning styles, their receiving, interaction and response behaviour also vary (Junko, 1998). Learning styles manipulate students’ learning preferences therefore it is crucial for a teacher to determine students’ learning styles during planning and practising learning activities in class. In this way learning needs of students are provided in a more sensitive manner. Learning styles have significant impacts on academic success which is one of the major aims of schools. Academic achievement affects students’ lives in a lot of ways. If students experience academic achievement at school, they also realize that if they make an effort for their aims, they can reach success as well. Even though learning styles are not the only determinant of academic success but they have distinctive factors on it. For this reason in this study the relationship between the learning styles and the academic success of students has been examined. The method of the study descriptive which aims to determine the existency and degree of correlationship between two or more variables. In order to examine the relations between the learning styles and academic achievement were one-way-ANOVA analysis was used. 1207 students studying in Abant İzzet Baysal University Faculty of Education in academic year 2008- 2009 participated in the study. To assess the learning styles of the students, Kolb Learning Style Inventory, developed by David A. Kolb (1985) and adapted to Turkish by Akkoyunlu and Aşkar (1993) were used. In this adaptaion study the reliability coefficient was calculated as; for concrete experience .58, reflective observation .70, abstract conceptualising .71, active experince .65, abstract-concrete .77, active-reflective .76. Overall reliability of the inveontory is found as.72. The results of the present study indicate significant differences between learning styles and levels of achievement and this difference is due to the fact that the average for achievement of the converger learning style is larger than that of the diverger learning style

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