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Richardson (1994, p. 5) concludes his study by making the observation that “... mature students were rather more likely than younger students to adopt a deep approach or a meaning orientation towards their academic work, and .... were conversely less likely than younger students to adopt a surface approach or a reproducing orientation.” Other determinants of academic performance not discussed above include self-motivation, family income, and parents’ level of education. While a positive relationship between self-motivation and academic performance has been established (Zimmerman, Bandura, &
Martinez-Pons, 1992), the effect of family income and parents’ level of education on academic performance is far from being unravelled without equivocation.
Socioeconomic status of students and their families show moderate to strong relationship with academic performance (Sirin, 2005) but these relationships are contingent upon a number of factors such that it is nearly impossible to predict academic performance using socioeconomic status.
Methodology and methods
Context of the …show more content…
There was no significant (P > 0.05) difference in academic performance among the five learning preferences: visual, aural, read/ write, kinesthetic and multimodal. This finding is in disagreement with Felder
(1993), who is one of few researchers to report that an association exists between
90
Victor Mlambo
a student’s learning preference, teaching style and academic performance. Apart from Felder’s work, there is a general lack of experimental evidence to support the effectiveness of aligning instruction methods with learning preferences. The lack of association between learning preferences and academic performance in this study could either be a result of the VARK® questionnaire failing to accurately assess the learning preferences (and hence failing to place students into distinct learning preference categories) of the students or a reflection of a teaching style that encompasses different delivery methods such that none of the learning preferences were disadvantaged.
Table 5. Effect of learning style on academic performance of AGRI 1013 students
Academic Performance1
SE2
Visual
Martinez-Pons, 1992), the effect of family income and parents’ level of education on academic performance is far from being unravelled without equivocation.
Socioeconomic status of students and their families show moderate to strong relationship with academic performance (Sirin, 2005) but these relationships are contingent upon a number of factors such that it is nearly impossible to predict academic performance using socioeconomic status.
Methodology and methods
Context of the …show more content…
There was no significant (P > 0.05) difference in academic performance among the five learning preferences: visual, aural, read/ write, kinesthetic and multimodal. This finding is in disagreement with Felder
(1993), who is one of few researchers to report that an association exists between
90
Victor Mlambo
a student’s learning preference, teaching style and academic performance. Apart from Felder’s work, there is a general lack of experimental evidence to support the effectiveness of aligning instruction methods with learning preferences. The lack of association between learning preferences and academic performance in this study could either be a result of the VARK® questionnaire failing to accurately assess the learning preferences (and hence failing to place students into distinct learning preference categories) of the students or a reflection of a teaching style that encompasses different delivery methods such that none of the learning preferences were disadvantaged.
Table 5. Effect of learning style on academic performance of AGRI 1013 students
Academic Performance1
SE2
Visual