Learning style and its relationship to academic performance of Central Philippine University Elementary School intermediate pupils

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the relationship of pupils’ learning styles and their academic performance in their major subjects namely: English, Filipino, Mathematics and Science. The respondents consisted of the 313 intermediate pupils of Central Philippine University Elementary School. The instrument used in this study was a teacher- made questionnaire which was administered personally by the researcher to the respondents. The data collected were coded, encoded and analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for windows program. Two types of analyses were used, the descriptive analysis and the correlational analysis. Major Findings Of the 313 respondents, 50.8% were males and 49.2% were females. There were 138 grade V pupils and 175 enrolled grade VI pupils for the school year 2009-2010. Over one-third of the respondents were in the middle average IQ while over one fourth were in the above average IQ. One in every five pupils in the elementary had bright to superior IQ, but almost one-fifth had low average IQ. The dominant learning styles of the Grade five pupils were visual followed by auditory and verbal while in the Grade six pupils were auditory, followed by verbal, and then visual. Majority of the pupils’ perceived the teaching style of their teachers in all subject areas, English, Mathematics, Science and Filipino to be verbal. Majority of the elementary pupils had satisfactory academic performance in the four academic subjects. The average performance of the pupils in the four subjects was over 83%. Two in every ten pupils performed outstandingly in English and in Science and one in every ten pupils had an outstanding academic performance in Mathematics and Filipino. The pupils’ personal characteristics such as sex, age and grade level were not significantly related to their learning style. However, the pupils’ IQ was related to their learning style. The data revealed that auditory and visual were the dominant learning styles of pupils when grouped according to sex, age, grade level and IQ. Kinesthetic was their least dominant learning style. When pupils were grouped according to sex, age, grade level and IQ, their perception of their teachers’ teaching styles in all subjects was verbal. There was a significant relationship between sex and perceived teaching style in English, while age, sex and grade level were significantly related to their perceived teaching style of their teachers in Filipino. However, there was no significant relationship between pupils’ sex, age, grade level, and IQ and their perceived teaching style of their teachers’ in Mathematics and Science. The personal characteristics of the elementary grade pupils such as sex, age, grade level, and IQ were related to their academic performance in English and Filipino. The result of the study showed that girls performed better in English and Filipino than their male counterpart. The Grade five pupils had higher academic performance than the grade six pupils in English. The pupils’ IQ and their academic performance in all subjects were significantly related which means that the higher the IQ, the higher the academic achievement is expected. Likewise the lower the pupils’ IQ, the lower academic achievement is expected. There was no significant relationship between pupils’ sex and their academic performance in Science but pupils’ age, grade level and IQ were significantly related to their academic performance in Science while in Mathematics, the pupils’ sex, grade level and their academic performance were not related. The pupils’ learning style was found to be significantly related to their perceived teachers’ teaching styles in English and Math. However, there was no significant relationship between pupils’ learning styles and their perceived teachers’ teaching styles in Science and Filipino. The findings showed that the perceived teaching style of teachers in English (verbal) matched with the desired learning styles (auditory and visual) of the pupils. Pupils’ learning style was not related to their academic performance in Mathematics and English. The pupils’ learning style has nothing to do with their academic achievement in Mathematics and English. However, there was no significant relationship found between pupils’ learning style and their academic performance in Science and Filipino. There was a significant relationship between the perceived teaching style of teachers and their academic performance of pupils in Mathematics but there was no significant relationship between the pupils’ perceived teaching style of their teachers in Science, English, Filipino and their academic performance which means that academic performance of pupils in English, Science and Filipino were independent of their perceived teaching styles of their teachers. Conclusions Based on the foregoing findings of the study, the following conclusions were drawn: 1. One-fifth of the pupils at CPUES had bright to superior IQ and less than one fifth has low IQ level. 2. The dominant learning styles of the Grade five pupils were auditory and visual. The Grade six pupils’ dominant learning styles were auditory and visual. Kinesthetic was the least desired learning style of both grade levels. 3. The pupils’ perceived teaching style (verbal) of their teachers in all the four subject areas namely: English, Mathematics, Science and Filipino, matched the learning style of the pupils which were auditory and visual. 4. The academic performance of the pupils in the four academic subjects was satisfactory with a grade/rating ranging from 80-89. 5. The pupils’ personal characteristics such as sex, age and grade level were found out to be not significantly related to their learning styles, but there was a significant relationship between the pupils’ IQ and their learning style. The visual learning style was the dominant learning style of pupils with superior, bright, and low average IQ. Verbal xvii learning was the dominant learning style of pupils with very bright and above average IQ while it was auditory for those pupils with middle average and low average IQ. 6. The pupils’ sex was significantly related to their perceived teaching style of their teachers in English. In Science, there was a significant relationship between IQ and perceived teaching style while in Filipino, age, sex and grade level were found to be significantly related to perceived teacher’s teaching style. In Mathematics, the pupils’ age, grade level and IQ and their perceived teaching style of their teachers has no significant relationship. 7. There was a significant relationship between pupils’ IQ and their academic performance in all subjects. This means that IQ is a potential predictor of academic performance in all subjects. The higher the pupils’ IQ the higher also was their academic performance. In English and Filipino, sex, age, grade level and IQ were found to be significantly related to academic performance. The female pupils performed better in English and Filipino than their male counterparts. Grade five pupils had higher academic performance than grade six pupils in English but in Science, pupils’ academic performance is independent of their age and sex but it is influenced by their grade level and IQ. 8. In Mathematics and English, a significant relationship were found between pupils’ learning styles and perceived teachers’ teaching styles but not in Science and Filipino. 9. The pupils’ learning style has nothing to do with their academic achievement in Mathematics and English. However, there was no significant relationship between pupils’ learning style and their academic performance in Science and Filipino. 10. There was a significant relationship between the pupils’ perceived teachers’ teaching style and academic performance of pupils in Mathematics, but not with Science, English and Filipino. Recommendations The following are the researcher’s recommendation. The school curriculum must provide adequate, varied and updated instructional materials and facilities in every classroom so that teachers will use teaching styles to allow the pupils to have rich and exciting learning experience in school and to allow pupils to learn more using their varied learning styles. The school library as a learning resource center must also contain adequate, varied and updated reading materials and facilities to make it attractive to the learners. Scheduled counseling time must be religiously implemented to meet the pupils’ academic needs. The teachers must assess the learning styles of their pupils so that they will be guided on how to deal with them to be able to meet their learning needs. They should also update themselves with knowledge and skills on the use of varied and effective teaching strategies. The teachers should motivate the male pupils to study so that their academic performance to keep instep with the female pupils. The pupils who are bright must be provided with challenging activities to maximize their potentials and those pupils with low academic performance must be assisted to cope with the school requirements. The parents must also know the learning styles of their children so that they can also help improve their academic performance. The pupils must also try learning styles other than what they currently use. Further research must be conducted along this line expanding the area of coverage of the study.