Relationship Between Learning Style Preferences And Instructional Technology Usage

We have been studying engineering students’ learning in both undergraduate and graduate courses on probability and statistics as part of the biomedical engineering curriculum. These courses employ a scaffold of multiple instructional technologies including the course management system, BlackBoard®, hyperlinked PowerPoint® notes, Classroom Performance System (CPS) technology, and “real-world” MATLAB®-intensive problems. The goal of this study is to determine if students with different learning styles (e.g., active vs. reflective learners) have different usage patterns of and derive different benefits from the instructional technologies. We also compare the learning styles of this sample of biomedical engineering students to the existing literature and explore if there are relationships between factors such as learning style, grades and graduate vs. undergraduate status. We present an analysis of Learning Styles Inventory data, survey data on instructional technology perceptions, usage statistics collected from the course management system, and outcome data. In addition, we provide suggestions on how to align instructional strategies (such as interactions between students and interaction with professor) with learning preferences.