Unfairly Labeled

Resources: Case Study 2 Details

The following appendix provides further detail into the research results presented in Chapter 12: Case Study 2. The purpose of the study was to identify learning-style preferences by generational cohort as well as learning-activity preferences by generational cohort. Three research questions were asked:

1. To what extent do learning-style preferences vary by generational cohort?
2. To what extent do preferences for learning technologies and learning activities vary by generational cohort?
3. How can instructional design for web-based learning be optimized to address the learning-style preferences of a generationally diverse workforce?

The first part of the survey, related to learning style and question one, was a tool called the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) developed by Richard Felder and Barbara Soloman. The ILS is a 44-item web-based survey designed to identify an individual's learning-style preferences. Felder and Soloman designed the instrument in 1991, and based their work on the four dimensions of the Felder-Silverman learning style model (Felder & Silverman, 1988). The ILS measures learning preferences on four dimensions: (1) active (i.e., learning by doing) versus reflective (i.e., learning by thinking), (2) sensing (i.e., practical and fact-based) versus intuitive (i.e., theoretical and abstract), (3) visual (i.e., learning via images) versus verbal (i.e., learning via writing or speech), and (4) sequential (steplike linearity) versus global ...