Do Students Who Prefer To Learn Alone Achieve Better Than Students Who Prefer To Learn with Peers

Research by Doyle (1983), Anderson (1984), and Goodlad (1984) has found that teachers spend most of their class time talking to students about material to be learned, asking short-answer questions, and assigning work to the students. Current instructional practices tend to be dominated by lecture, individual seatwork, and competitive testing and grading. Students are required generally to be passive, silent, and isolated. In recent years, a body of literature has arisen that suggests that these current practices may not respond to important learner characteristics. In passivity, silence, and isolation there is little recognition of these learner characteristics and little provision for students who do not learn best through current instructional practices. Even when efforts are made to change such structures, they still may not respond to important learner characteristics. For example, interest has grown in the instructional practices identified generally as "cooperative learning. " A number of research studies (Slavin, 1983; Johnson & Johnson, 1975, 1989) on cooperative small groups have demonstrated higher achievement averages for groups of students. In contrast to the patterns discovered by Doyle (1983), Goodlad (1984), and Anderson (1984) cooperative learning students are not required to be passive, silent, and isolated but, rather, are involved actively with their peers in learning activities. Even cooperative learning strategies, however, do not respond to all important learner characteristics. Research on learning style suggests that no single instructional method or approach is effective for all students (Dunn & Dunn, 1978; Hunt, 1979; Gregorc, 1979). Over the past decade, researchers have focussed on the concept of learning style and on the development of instruments to identify a student's learning style preference. Some recent studies (Perrin, 1984; DeBello, 1985; Miles, 1988; Giannitti, 1988) which have concentrated on teaching students through their individual preferences for learning alone or with peers have documented significantly increased achievement when individuals were grouped in patterns that were responsive to these preferences. Other recent studies by Cholakis (1986) and Phelix (1988) have discovered no such increase. The present study seeks to shed some light on and to clarify such contradictory findings. Further, this study is the first to examine whether students achieve as well when taught through instructional methods congruent with their identified preference for learning alone or with peers as they do when given the opportunity to choose each time whether to learn alone or with peers. Questions This study sought to respond to the following questions: 1. Is there a difference between the achievement scores of students who are identified as having a strong preference for learning alone and students who are identified as having a strong preference for learning with peers? 2. Of the students identified as strongly preferring to learn alone, is there a difference between the scores of those who choose to learn alone and those who choose to learn with peers? 3. Of the students identified as strongly preferring to learn with peers, is there is a difference between the scores of those who choose to learn with peers and those who choose to learn alone? Method Subjects The 114 subjects involved in this study at the onset attend four elementary schools in suburban Syracuse, New York. They were the students who were taught social studies by the third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers who volunteered to take an inservice course on learning styles. There were 20 students in the third grade, 52 in the two fourth grades, and 42 in the two fourth grades. Table 1 shows the distribution by sex and grade level. Table 1 Distribution of Subjects by Sex and Grade Sex Grade 3 4 5 Girls 13 24 16 Boys 7 28 26 Procedure The five participating teachers were enrolled in a twelve-hour course entitled "Accommodating Student Learning Preferences in the Classroom. …