29A-11 |
Learning styles in food science and engineering education |
E. PALOU, Chemical and Food Engineering, Universidad de las Americas-Puebla, Cholula, Puebla, 72820, Mexico Every teacher wants to improve teaching effectiveness, and a good place to begin is by understanding the various ways students perceive and process information. People have different learning styles that are reflected in different academic strengths, weaknesses, skills, and interests. Given the almost unlimited variety of job descriptions within food science and engineering, it is safe to say that students with every possible learning style have the potential to succeed as food scientists and engineers. They may not be equally likely to succeed in school, however, since they respond differently to different instructional approaches and the predominant mode of instruction favors some learning styles over others. The goals of the study were to test the degree to which student performance and attitudes were consistent with expectations based on type theory and prior studies, as well as to determine whether the instructional approach improved the performance of students with specific type preferences. The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) was administered to several groups of undergraduate and graduate food science and engineering students taking different courses at our University. Those courses were taught in a manner that emphasized active and cooperative learning as well as inductive presentation of course material. The ILS is a self-scoring instrument that assesses preferences on the Sensing/Intuiting, Visual/Verbal, Active/Reflective, and Sequential/Global dimensions of the Felder-Silverman model. Type differences in various academic performance measures and attitudes were noted as students progressed through the curriculum. Observations were generally consistent with predictions of type theory, and the active and cooperative learning instructional approach improved the performance of ILS types (actives and sensors) found in previous studies to be disadvantaged in the science and engineering curricula. The ILS is a useful tool for helping food science and engineering instructors and advisors to understand their students and to design instruction that can benefit all of them.
Session 29A, Education: General
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