WhatsApp with learning preferences?

Systems Analysis and Design is a second year subject offered as two modules. It forms part of the Information Technology course at the North-West University´s Vaal Triangle Campus. As part of an initiative to create varied opportunities for students to learn, the lecturer creates instant messaging groups on WhatsApp; a forum created to allow communication between peers. It is designed to allow students not having access to Internet away from campus, access to peers while preparing for formative and summative assessment. Felder and Silverman developed five dimensions of learning preferences, each with two sections. Their research built on the research of Kolb, Meyers-Briggs and Jung. The dimensions include: perception where learning takes place in an intuitive way or by sensing; input which may be visual or verbal; organizing which may be inductive or deductive; processing where students learn through active participation or on their own through reflection; and understanding in a sequential or global way. The WhatsApp environment was included in students learning repertoire to allow for differences in learning preferences and to enable students to get answers to questions while away from campus. With WhatsApp being a social media platform, we may assume that students who learn actively will be more inclined to use it. Since text is used to communicate, we may suspect that verbal learners will also benefit. Pictures can be sent, which may assist visual learners. In this way, it may be argued that most learning preferences can be addressed in a conversation group. Are these assumptions true? Does instant messaging address most learning preferences? This paper will attempt to identify students from the different learning preferences by analyzing the WhatsApp conversations among them. Other questions that will be answered from this research include: How good is student participation - how many students prefer not to be part of a conversation group for learning, and how many would stay, but only to read conversations between peers?