A Comparative Analysis of Preferred Learning and Teaching Styles for Engineering, Industrial, and Technology Education Students and Faculty

This study showed that while there was some variation within majors, the overall dominant learning style in the materials process course was the kinesthetic style. While this was a result the researchers expected, the technology education students were unexpected outliers from the rest of the group. From the Kruskal and Wallis test, the researchers observed a statistical significance (0.041*) between the three groups for the read/write learning style with the technology education students rating it the most preferred learning style. This does raise additional questions for researchers. Based on how the curriculum is often developed and delivered, technology education is typically a very hands-on, kinesthetic discipline. In fact, the content is more kinesthetically based than industrial technology and engineering technology programs, yet students from these other disciplines rated kinesthetic learning as more important than the technology education students. Further research is needed to determine if technology education as a discipline should shift a little more toward the read/write delivery method, sacrificing some of the kinesthetic teaching in the process. These results could also be due to the grass being greener on the other side of the fence. As engineering technology and industrial technology students do not have as much kinesthetic-based learning in their programs, they may see it as a better, more preferred, option of getting content. The same may be true of technology education students believing more read/write-based curriculum would be beneficial.