ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up some of the themes outlined by Tony Edwards and revisits them from a different perspective. The main emphasis is to explore some of the potential and real links between learning styles, teaching methods and course requirements in the post-16 GNVQ and A level courses. Learning styles are defined here as the teachers’ and students’ preferred ways of perceiving and of processing incoming information and their experience for engaging with particular learning activities and tasks. The concept of learning style preferences is based on the premiss that individuals prefer to learn in different ways, and that given a choice they will tend to approach learning tasks in a relatively consistent manner. Yet empirical work on learning styles in the 16-19 stage seems to be a neglected area, especially when compared with the number of studies focusing on the higher education stage. Therefore, early on in this project, it was decided to build out from the extensive datasets of the ALIS project, which included post-16 students reporting on their experiences of the ways in which they have been taught. The new features were to incorporate a well-known measure of learning styles (Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory, 1976) and extensive classroom observations of teaching and learning.
