T.S. Moser¹, Kimberly Wilson^2,

This research was designed to investigate the relationship between learning styles, multiple intelligences, and academic achievement in a middle school science classroom. Specifically, this research addressed the following research question; Does student learning style play an important role in the academic success of students in an eighth-grade science classroom? To determine answers to these questions a careful review of the relevant psychology was performed, followed by a comparison of learning styles and academic achievement. Participants consisted of 66 eighth grade students in an urban middle school in the midwestern United States. To determine individual learning styles participants completed The Kolb Learning Style Inventory. Participants answered a set of questions using a Likert scale; results are placed along a plane in two dimensions, from concrete experience to abstract conceptualization, and from active experimentation to reflective observation. Results grouped participants into one of four quadrants: activist, pragmatist, theorist, or reflector. Academic success was measured using a summative post-test designed to measure student understanding of concepts covered during the unit. To examine the relations among academic achievement (as measured by a unit test score) and four learning styles (i.e., Activist, Theorist, Pragmatist, and Reflector), several analyses were conducted. To determine if there was a relationship among the variables, bivariate correlations were computed. It was found that Activist and Theorist were negatively correlated (p=-0.25). To determine if dominant learning style predicted academic achievement, a multiple regression analysis was conducted. The results of the regression indicated that the predictor variables of Activist, Pragmatist, Theorist, and Reflector did not predict unique variance in the dependent variable of Academic Achievement (R2=.07, F (4,61) =1.1, p<.36).

learning styles, multiple intelligences, experiential learning, science education