A comparison on the learning styles of chemistry students and chemistry education students in universities in Turkey - Full Length Research Paper

Oct 15, 2026

The study compares learning styles of students in Chemistry Education departments and in Chemistry departments across universities in Turkey. The sample includes 1,291 undergraduate students from chemistry programs in eight universities and from chemistry education programs in five universities in different geographic regions. Kolb Learning Style Inventory was used to collect data. Overall, chemistry undergraduates show diverging learning style as dominant, with assimilating as second, while chemistry education students show diverging as dominant.

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Abstract

Introduction

African Educational Research Journal Vol. 8(4), pp. 841-848, November 2020 DOI: 10. 30918/AERJ.84.20.186 ISSN: 2354-2160 Full Length Research Paper A comparison on the learning styles of chemistry students and chemistry education students in universities in Turkey Dilek Çelikler Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Faculty of Education, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun, Turkey. Accepted 3 November, 2020 | ABSTRACT
The aim of the study is to compare learning styles of students in the department of chemistry education in education faculties and learning styles of students in the department of chemistry in faculties of science or faculties of arts and sciences in Turkey. The study group of the study is comprised of 1291 undergraduate students in total from the chemistry departments in eight universities and from Chemistry Education departments in 5 universities located in different geographical regions in Turkey. Data was obtained using Kolb Learning Style Inventory. When the entire study group is considered, it is observed that chemistry undergraduate students have diverging learning style as the dominant and that the assimilating learning style as the second among their learning style preferences. It is concluded that chemistry students have assimilating learning style while chemistry education students have diverging learning style as the dominant one according to the departments.
Keywords: Turkey, chemistry students, chemistry education students, Kolb’s learning styles. | | --- | | E-mail: [dilekc@omu.edu.tr. Tel:](dilekc@omu.edu.tr. Tel:) +90 362 3121919 ext: 5857. | INTRODUCTION Individuals process information in different ways using different information sources due to having different personality traits, learning methods and styles, and this leads an individual’s learning requirements to be different (Riding and Rayner, 1998) . An individual should be successful at solving problems he/she faces in order to make his/her life efficient. Becoming an active problemsolver as an individual could be realized by knowing one’s learning style (Fidan, 1986) . An individual knowing his/her own learning style will activate this style during the learning process (Biggs, 2001) . Learning styles are being differences in information processing (Snyder, 2000) and play an important role in students’ ability to structure information in an efficient manner (She, 2005) . Learning styles which are observable and distinguishable includes behavior giving clues about an individual (Kaplan and Kies, 1995) . There are different definitions of learning styles in the literature. Kolb (1984) stated that learning style was the method personally selected by an individual in terms of grasping and processing information. Kolb regarded the learning process as a cycle and defined four types of learning styles in this cycle. These learning styles are (Aşkar and Akkoyunlu, 1993): -Concrete experience –(CE) -Abstract conceptualization –(AC) -Active experience –(AE), and -Reflective observation –(RO) . Among these four learning styles, one of them is prioritized for individuals. It is also inevitable to undergo this cycle countlessly in a learning experience (Hasırcı, 2006) . Learning ways in these learning styles are different from each other. The learning way for these different learning styles are feeling for concrete Afr Educ Res J 842 experience, thinking for abstract conceptualization, doing for active experience, and watching for reflective observation (Kolb 1984; Cassidy, 2004) . Every individual’s learning style is the combination of two learning styles among these four (Gencel, 2006; Kolb, 2000): - The combination of concrete experience and reflective observation is diverging, - The combination of reflective observation and abstract conceptualization is assimilating, - The combination of abstract conceptualization and active experience is converging, - The combination of active experience an

FAQs

What is the main aim of the study?

The study aims to compare the learning styles of chemistry students and chemistry education students in universities in Turkey.

How many students participated and from where?

The study group includes 1,291 undergraduate students from chemistry departments in eight universities and from chemistry education departments in five universities across different regions in Turkey.

Which instrument was used to obtain the data?

Data were obtained using the Kolb Learning Style Inventory.

Oct 15, 2026

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