RELATIONSHIP OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT TO THE VARIABLES OF LEARNING STYLES, INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT, AGE, AND ACT SCORES AMONG ASSOCIATE DEGREE NURSING STUDENTS.
Contributors: University of Southern Mississippi.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 124
Subjects: Education, Adult and Continuing.
Description: In the health care field it is imperative that learning be maximized to insure that students will develop into competent practitioners. The use of learning style theory has received much attention in the current literature as a means to promote learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between academic achievement (GPA) and the variables of learning style, stage of intellectual development, age, and ACT scores for Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) students.

During the spring of 1987, Erwin's Scale of Intellectual Development and Kolb's Learning Style Inventory 1985 were administered to 113 freshman and sophomore ADN students. Other student data collected included age, sex, race, GPA, and ACT scores. Using multiple linear regression, analysis of data for the primarily white, female ADN students revealed that ACT was the only predictor variable that contributed significantly to academic achievement. This relationship, however, was weak. no significant independent relationship was found between academic achievement and learning style, stage of intellectual development, or age.

The lack of any significant relationship between academic achievement and age for this 18 to 46 year old age group should be encouraging to nontraditional students and their educators. Although ACT scores were weakly but significantly related to academic achievement, this relationship only held true for freshman students. There was no significant relationship between academic achievement and ACT scores for sophomore students.

The construct of learning styles has been measured by a multitude of diverse instruments in current research, which hinders comparison among the many learning style studies published to date. Also, in spite of its popularity, Kolb's LSI has been accused repeatedly of instrument bias; further investigation seems warranted.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-04, Section: A, page: 0698.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI, 1987.

School code: 0211.