The Effect of Agricultural Students' Learning Styles on Academic Achievement and Their Perceptions of Two Methods of Instruction

Assistant ProfessorPurdue UniversityA wealth of research has been undertakento attempt to define and demonstrate the effects of astudent’s learning style on academic performancein the classroom. Cognitive style is not a singleentity. Researchers examining learning styles havevaried views on the exact components andcharacteristics of learning styles. Keefe (1982)stated,Learning styles are cognitive, affective,and physiological traits that serve asrelatively stable indicators of how learnersperceive, interact with, and respond to thelearning environment. (p. 32)The most accepted learning styles range from theConceptual Tempo (Kagan et al., 1964) andHemisphercity (Bjorklund, 1989) approaches tothe Convergent/Divergent thinking (Guilford,1959) and Independent/Dependent (Witkin,Moores, Goodenough, & Cox, 1977) techniques.According to Rasinski (1983), fieldindependence/dependence is “by far” the mostresearched of all cognitive styles. This learningapproach measures how much students are able toovercome the effects of distracting backgroundelements when they attempt to differentiate relevantaspects of a particular situation (Dembo, 1991). Witkin et al. (1977) stated that field independentstudents show greater interest in more impersonal,abstract aspects of various stimuli. In contrast,field dependent students, prefer a higher level ofsocial sensitivity and prefer structured activities thatrequire involvement with others.Dembo (1991) stated the following aboutfield dependent versus field independent studentsand how they interact differently with theirenvironment:Field dependent persons are drawn topeople, favor occupations, such asteaching, that require involvement withothers, and prefer academic areas, suchas the social sciences, that are morepeople oriented. Field independentpersons favor school subjects such asmathematics and the physical sciences,that stress the impersonal and abstract.Field dependent persons are better atlearning and remembering socialmaterial, and field independent personsare better at learning and rememberingimpersonal material. (p. 83)Independent and dependent learning stylehas an impact with respect to academic achievementin classrooms that use computer aided instruction.Cheney (1980) suggested that computer aidedinstruction can be made more effective if it isadapted to an individual’s cognitive style. Post(1987) found similar results in his computer basedresearch. MacGregor, Shapiro, and Niemiec(1988) in researching the effect of computer aidedmathematical instruction, found that although fieldindependent students outperformed field dependentstudents in all teaching methods, field dependentstudents particularly benefited from computer aidedinstruction as it provided the needed cognitivestructure and consistency they lack.A continual dilemma experienced byagricultural educators is how to respond to thechanging face of society and stay abreast of thepossible impacts that technology could have in theteaching-learning context.A relatively newdimension of microcomputer technology entitled,“multimedia” possesses the potential to influencestudent learning and knowledge acquisition.Multimedia is a multi-faceted approach tocomputer-based education that brings together text,graphics, animation, video, still images, audio, andmotion video.Sensing the vast capabilities of multimediain the educational realm, computer companies havedeveloped multimedia software packages that canbe used as teaching tools by instructors.Multimedia can possibly serve as a trenchant26 Vol. 35, No. 1, 1994Journal of Agricultural Education