High and Low Achieving Online Graduate Students’ Learning Styles and Strategies

This study explored the styles and strategies used by online MA students of TEFL and investigated the relationship among their learning styles, learning strategies, and learning achievement. The participants were 87 online graduate students of TEFL at Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST). The instruments consisted of questionnaires on learning styles and strategies and average scores of online students. The results showed that the most learning style preferences were obtained by synthesizing, field-independent, closure-oriented, random-intuitive, and visual, while the lowest ones were related to field-dependent, auditory, tactile / kinesthetic, and open styles. Online students’ highest tendency was related to handling possibilities, while their lowest tendency was concerned with using physical senses. With regard to learning strategies, goal setting strategies received the highest mean, whereas task-strategies received the lowest mean. The results of binary logistic regression also revealed that high achievers were mostly grouped into visual, tactile, inclusive, closure, and open learning styles. However, there was no difference between high and low achieving students in learning strategy use. Online instructors are recommended to consider styles and strategies of online students and choose appropriate materials and methods based on their styles and strategies.