Learning styles of students in an industrial engineering programme

Students have different levels of motivation, different attitudes about teaching and learning, and different responses to learning environments and teaching approaches. To achieve intended learning outcomes of a course, understanding different student learning styles can help instructors to teach more effectively by taking into account the diversity of the student learning needs. This paper studies the learning styles of higher diploma students who have enrolled in an Industrial Engineering programme. The objectives of this paper are (1) to identify student learning styles and the relationship between them, and the proportions of each style defined by Felder-Silverman (FSLS) and GrashaReichmann (GRLS) models, (2) to identify how the learning styles of the Year 1 students different from those of Year 2 students, and (3) to propose suitable teaching approaches to meet the student learning needs. Using the questionnaires of these learning styles, the data obtained from the students were captured. Using FSLS model, it is found that most of the Year 1 students are sensing, visual and sequential learners; for Year 2 students, most of them are of the same styles as the Year 1 students except with an additional reflective style. Using GRLS model, it is found that most of the Year 1 students (1) are not dependent, (2) are highly collaborative, and (3) moderately and highly participant; the learning styles of Year 2 students are consistent with those of Year 1 students, and their corresponding proportions are higher. These results could be used to help to improve the quality of student learning and instructor teaching in the current programme.