THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHER’S/STUDENTS’ CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR LEARNING STYLES IN A VISUAL COMMUNICATION CLASS

Learning styles connote the way an individual learns best; it describes how he perceives what he has been taught and how best he can solve problems from what he has learnt. Learning styles of individuals are influenced by certain characteristics of students, and teacher’s personality. This study was embarked upon to identify the effects of students’ characteristics and teacher’s personality on learning styles and learning outcome in a visual communication, undergraduate course in the department of architecture, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria. Ninety eight (98) undergraduate students were involved in the study. The methodology involved administration of questionnaires with close-ended questions, and observation during class sessions. Secondary data like students’ visual communication grade in the previous semester and results spread sheet were also employed. Characteristics such as age, sex, past grade in visual communication and grade point average (signifying intellectual capacity) were correlated with learning styles using cross tabulation. Results were presented with tables and pie charts. The study found that certain socio-economic factors of students and teacher showed insignificant influence on students’ learning styles and subsequent outcome of engaging those identified styles. This implies that the teacher is expected to be flexible with the way he facilitates his classes, in order to capture the social needs of the learners