Learning Styles: Relationships to Sex, Age, and Grade Level

Abstract

To determine if sex, age, and education level affect learning style, 49 students from a rural middle school and 59 students from a rural high school were surveyed with the CITE (Center for Innovative Teaching Education) Learning Styles Inventory (Krieg, Brown, & Ballard, 1995), also indicating sex, age, and education level. Analysis of the data revealed several significant differences between the sexes, ages, and grade levels with respect to different learning styles. The main differences particularly pertained to auditory and visual learning, and expressiveness. Specifically, males in the middle school sample preferred Auditory Numerical learning more than females in the same sample (p<008). On the other hand, females in both samples scored higher than males on use of Expressiveness Written (p<004) and Visual Language (p<041) learning styles. Additional significant differences were found correlating separate learning styles with one another. For example, Expressiveness-Written and Social-Individual learning were positively correlated (p<01). All results are discussed in detail, identifying implications of research and possible explanations of results.