Learning style as a correlate to course grade for a sample of students enrolled in community college telecourses

The purpose of this study was to correlate the learning modes and styles of community college telecourse students with their final course grade. The rationale for examining this correlation was to identify characteristics of academically successful telecourse students. These characteristics could then be examined to differentiate appropriate advising and learning environments for all telecourse students. The participants in this study were 161 students enrolled in summer telecourses at one community college. All students completed a Personal Data Inventory, developed for this study by the researcher to elicit five items of census information, and the Learning Style Inventory (LSI) developed by David A. Kolb (1985). The LSI measures the degree to which an individual displays specific learning modes and styles. The LSI accomplishes this by weighting the relative emphasis a learner places on one of four learning modes: (a) Abstract Conceptualization, (b) Concrete Experience, (c) Active Experimentation, and (d) Reflective Observation. These weighted learning modes scores are used to identify one of four learner preferred styles which are (a) Assimilator, (b) Converger, (c) Accommodator, and (d) Diverger. The Kolb LSI is derived from experiential learning research which postulates that students learn in different ways in different environments. Four hypotheses were developed to examine the influence of each of the four learning modes. They were tested using t-tests for comparison of the means from the subscales of the Kolb LSI. A fifth hypothesis looked at the frequency of learning style occurrence and was tested using a two-by-two chi-square. The level of significance for all hypotheses testing was p $\leq$.05. Final analysis showed that no correlation existed between the four learning modes and academic success. However, indications of a correlation between Concrete Experience and Reflective Observation learning modes and a very high level of academic success was discovered. The study, also, did not show a correlation between learning style and academic success. These results would seem to suggest that the most capable students are academically successful regardless of learning mode and style.