The Construct Validity of Felder-Soloman Index of Learning Styles (ILS) for the Prospective Teachers

Abstract

Learning style as one of the most important individual differences explains the features of individuals' learning process and defines the ways of their own learning. Among the various learning style indexes, the ILS of Felder-Soloman is one of the most preferred ones. Because the ILS was developed for engineering students, it is important to examine whether this instrument could be used for the students of faculty of education or not. In this study, it was aimed to test the construct validity of the ILS for the students of a faculty of education at Anadolu University in Turkey. According to the results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), the 44-item original structure of the ILS did not present a model fit with the data at hand. Indeed, the low reliability of one dimension of the scale showed that ILS could not be used as a valid and reliable scale for the participated prospective teachers.

Učni stili in preference za opravljanje bodočega poklicnega dela študentov in študentk dodiplomskega študija kineziologije

“…Zanesljivost kot notranja skladnost lestvice temelji na predpostavki, da če vse postavke merijo isto lastnost, tudi med seboj popolnoma korelirajo oziroma so nepopolne korelacije posledice napak merjenja (Sočan, 2011). Cronbachov koeficient alfa je za posamezno lestvico znašal: α = 0,656 za Z-I; α = 0,662 za VI-VE; α = 0,591 za A-R in α = 0,370 za Z-G. Podobno kot v nekaterih predhodnih raziskavah (Caceffo idr., 2019;Çardak in Selvi, 2016) se je najvišja notranja skladnost pokazala za lestvici Z-I in VI-VE, najnižja pa za lestvico Z-G. V preglednici 2 predstavljamo analizo posameznih postavk lestvic IUS. Porazdelitev indeksov težavnosti za posamezno lestvico naj bi bila podobna normalni in se gibala med 0,1 in 0,9, saj je še posebno pri dihotomnih postavkah od »težavnosti odvisna tudi višina korelacij z drugimi postavkami in s tem zanesljivost testa« (Sočan, 2011, str.…”

Learning strategies of dental undergraduates of orthodontics and prosthodontics.

“…Questionnaire was administered using Felder and Soloman's Index of Learning Styles. 11 Felder and Soloman's Index identify learners on four scales, active or reflective scale, visual or verbal scale, sensing or intuitive scale, and sequential or global scale. 1-3 score shows a well balanced learner.…”

“…5-7 score shows a moderate preference while score of 9-11 shows a strong preference for one dimension of the scale. 11 The descriptive statistics were applied and survey data were converted in to scores. Chi-square test was applied to find gender and age differences.…”

“…active or reflective, visual or verbal, sensing or intuitive, and sequential or global. 11 Active learners are type of learners that learn in groups while reflective learners prefer to learn alone. Visual learners are type of learners that learn by viewing diagrams while verbal learners prefer to learn by listening to lectures.…”

Fostering Experimental Competences Using Complementary Resources

“…Encouraging the necessity to know, rousing students' curiosity, building on students' prior knowledge as well as diversifying methods and teaching techniques in the classroom are all things that teachers can try to do (including other features described in section2.2). Several authors defend that this diversification is particularly important because students have different learning styles (visual, sensing, inductive, active or global) (Çardak & Selvi, 2016;Felder et al, 2000;Larkin-Hein & Budny, 2001;Prince & Felder, 2006;Richardson, 2011;Silverman & Forum, 1988); if teachers do not diversify the teaching techniques they may fail their intention of reaching all students which may "lead to poor student performance, professional frustration and a loss to society of many potentially engineers" (Silverman & Forum, 1988). Other authors, like Kirschner (2013) defend that learning styles are "an urban legend in education" and one should focus on the bottom things students have in common, not denying their individual differences and preferences for this or that approach, that, depending on the context, may be or not be realized in practice.…”