University of Malta. Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Educational Research
Abstract
Learning style preferences and selection of university major data were
obtained from a sample of 199 Lebanese high school graduates. These measures and
gender were used to assess the relation between the selection of major and learning
style preferences. The main assumption was that students who believe they have
competencies or ability in a certain area would make choices to pursue activities in
these areas in order to develop further these competencies (Holland, 1973). The
perceptual and biological development of students’ auditory, visual, tactual and
kinesthetic senses appeared to be a key factor in their way of acquiring information.
Thus, fitting learning preferences to the specific content knowledge required is with
little doubt a very important issue that needs to be addressed by research. This study
found that learning style preferences were not homogeneous and were not
homogenously distributed across majors. Overall, students indicated a preference
for the visual and active learning styles.Females, however, were higher than males
on both reflective and verbal styles. Chi-square analyses indicated that each of
the six general major areas had distinct learning style attribute profiles that
distinguished them from the others. Learning style profiles, therefore, may
contribute positively to student selection processes for different majors.peer-reviewe
