Instructional Technology, Learning Styles, And Academic Achievement

The paper presents results of an action research project, which took place between January and April 2001, and examined how differences in prior academic achievement of students and in their learning styles affected learning outcomes. All students received hypermedia instruction. The results show that hypermedia allowed previously lower-achieving students to improve their academic performance and therefore reduce the gap between them and their higher-achieving peers. The findings suggest that reducing the gap was a result of hypermedia instruction moderating differences in achievement between students with different learning modalities and accommodating a wider range of learning styles than conventional instruction. These findings were consistent with the previous 2000 study and with the 1999 pilot project, where students in the experimental group received hypermedia instruction, and their achievement was compared with the achievement of conventionally instructed students in the control group. Course website access patterns and a survey of student attitudes towards hypermedia instruction are also discussed. The findings support the use of learning styles as a guideline for incorporation of the hypermedia into the instructional design of the course.