Good teaching is based on the psychology of teaching.
The nature of the learning process and the laws that govern its operation determin the types of teaching to be used by the teachers. The learner is recognized as the first principle of teaching and learning. According to psychologist, learning is a process of growth and development through self-activity or experience. Every learning situation entails effect. Learning requires a response potential which is sufficient to allow various kinds of behavior.Learning is not complete until the individual receives satisfaction, reward or reduction of tension for the efforts.
The individual interacts with forces in the environment; he is driven by various motivations instigated by needs. Since learning is a comprehensive process, it also involves the use of abstract concepts. It may take place at abstract level or at concrete level. (Corpuz and Salandan, 2007) All learning, as such, involves situations, which may not necessarily involve physical and motor components of behavior before the learner finally reaches the goal.
In such a situation, learner manipulates and endeavors to find out suitable solutions to even somewhat dissimilar problems. In a symbolic and abstract form of learning, learners past experience, his general ability and level of imagination determine the process in hitting out at the correct solution. According to Zulueta et. al.
(2002), learning is an acquisition of knowledge and information, development of skills and desirable attitudes and values. It is said that each individual is unique and we differ from each other. Thus, individuals have unlike characters, personality, behavior, and styles in learning new things.In teaching, one cannot say that only one teaching method or strategies is to be used. We have variety of teaching methods and strategies to choose for the teaching- learning cycles.
It can be said that the best teaching method is the one that yields results. Corollary to the diverse teaching methods is the diverse learning styles of students. Learning is probably a difficult concept to define. Generally, it is describe as a process of having one’s behavior modified, more or less permanently, by what happens in the world around him by what he observes.It is any change that results from experience except changes, which are due to psychological adjustment such as sensory adaptation and muscular fatigue or injury.
Many learners prefer to learn in a quite cozy room, some prefer to do their studies late at night and others set an alarm because they are more energetic in the morning. Others learn best by reading and some by chatting, some prefer to listen to a mellow song and some may find music as destruction. Whatever it is, it’s just learning style of every learner, - a diverse way of acquiring knowledge and understanding.Indeed, we are a population of incredibly diverse learners. Intriguing new research focusing in the ways students learned suggest that learning styles may be as unique handwriting. The challenge for educators is to diagnose these styles and to shape instructions to meet individual student need.
(www. mhhe. com/sadker7e). The process of learning is primarily controlled by the learner and not by the teacher. Learning is not only a function of what a teacher does to, or says to, or provides for the learner.
Moreover, learning has to deal with something which happens in real life or unique world of every individual. It flourished a situation in which teaching is only seen as facilitating process that assisting people to discover or explore the true meaning of the events for them. According to Guerero (2001) as cited by A. B. Ronda (2004), the learning style of students is unique and should be considered in the learning- teaching cycles. He stated further that teachers and administrators should give importance to student’s learning styles in order to come up with competent and knowledgeable learners.
Hence, instructional style in teaching must be in accordance with their learning styles of the students and consideration of their various intelligences. A teacher, has a challenging role to play in the acquisition of the students’ knowledge. He does not only work for the development of the students, inside the classroom but to serve as a facilitator, manager, and observer. At the same time he looks for ways to prevent different problems from occurring in the classroom which will render to dissatisfaction of the students and poor quality of instruction (Ronda, 2004).According to Arrazo, 2001 as cited by Ronda (2004) it is also the need to have a realistic understanding of the youth, “a sine qua non” or requisite to good teaching which is the very bedrock in the new philosophy of Philippine Education. The learning environment is the place where teaching and learning takes place in the most effective and productive manner.
It is a product of the physical and psychological as well as social atmosphere created by the interaction between the learners and the one who facilitate the learning (teacher) and among the learner’s themselves.Every individual learner makes their own strategies in learning new things or better understands of facts. The learners’ varied learning styles make them even more different from one another, and this is the focus of this study. According to Ebcas (2004) academic performance maybe described as the level of knowledge attained by a student after submitting himself to a long, tedious and continuous process of study. Although education is not the only road to success in the working world, much effort is made to identify, evaluate, track and encourage the progress of students in schools.Parents care about their child's academic performance because they believe good academic results will provide more career choices and job security.
Schools, though invested in fostering good academic habits for the same reason, are also often influenced by concerns about the school's reputation and the possibility of monetary aid from government institutions, which can hinge on the overall academic performance of the school. State and federal departments of education are charged with improving schools, and so devise methods of measuring success in order to create plans for improvement (Bell, 2007).Student's academic performance is a matter of concern to educators, parents, and students themselves. The ways in which an individual characteristically acquires, retains, and retrieves information are collectively referred to as his or her learning style (Felder and Henriques, 1995).
Unfortunately, the manner in which children acquire the information to perform well academically is too often ignored. The demographic profile of the students also affects the learning of the students. The students’ parent educational background is one of the factors that affect the learning process.Other than that, the age, gender, family income, also, entails effect in learning preferences of each learner.
The researchers believe that this study will discover the different learning styles of the student/s which is significant factor in the total development of every individual learner. This study will be conducted through the use of adopted questionnaires by the researchers as a survey to those selected students of the education department. The result of this survey will be the basis of this study. Conceptual FrameworkThis study is anchored on the theory of Dunn ; Dunn (as cited by Arrazo, 2001 and Ronda, 2004) on learning styles. Most of the people have their learning preferences which differ from one another. This preference is the way in which even individuals begin to concentrate on processes, absorbed and retained difficult information.
And as postulated by Tenedoro (1996) there are five dimensions of learning styles preferred by learners namely: sensory intuitive, visual- verbal, inductive- deductive, active- reflective and sequential- global. Every dimension is described below.Sensory – Intuitive learners prefer to learn when all their senses are involved in the activity. Sensing – Intuitive learners are learners who learns most by doing things of their own, they do not like topics that involve a lot of memorizing. The performance of the student in their academe were affected when the teaching styles of the teacher didn’t connive with this type of learners, their grades becomes low. But when being given a chance to prove their worth they will become more active and participate a lot to the discussion, and their academic performance becomes higher.
Visual – Verbal Learners, learns best by what they see, and by what they will say or write. These learners are more active when lot of speaking and explaining are involved in the activity. Their academic performances were affected when they are not given a chance to speak or share their ideas on a certain topic. They become uninterested in the discussions and find the topic boring. On the other hand, if the student were being acknowledge they excel in their academic subject. In the other hand there are learners who we could consider inductive and deductive learners.
Inductive learners are most comfortable with new information about facts and observation that are given and underlying principles inferred. Deductive learners enjoy information regarding principles that are given, its consequences and application deduced. Academic performance of the students will be affected Somehow active learners retain and understand information best by discussing it, applying it or explaining it to others. The learners become motivated to learn on his/ her peers and so he can perform very well with the help of others.
They are willing to try it out to know how it works with the group. They find it difficult to sit in lecture just taking notes but require interaction. While reflective learners retained and understand information best by thinking about it first. They think first alone so they need thinking time during lectures. The learners need concentration to achieve her goals in learning. The task becomes easy to him to reach There are also sequential and global learners.
Sequential learners gain understanding in small, sequential and logical steps.They follow stepwise path while solving problems. They may not understand the material fully but still able to solve problems and to pass tests. They know a lot of aspects about a subject, but may have trouble relating them to different aspects of the same or different subjects. Global learners seem to learn in large jumps, absorbing material almost randomly without seeing connections, then suddenly getting it. They may be able to solve complex problems quickly or put things together in novel ways.
They have a grasp of the big picture.In cases where learners are strongly globally type, they may have severe difficulties in solving problems when they have not grasped everything. They may have difficulty in explaining their knowledge, too. The independent variable of this study is the academic performance of first year education students in Tagoloan Community College school year 2010-2011. In which, this study will determined their relationship through their learning styles, and on how the students engaged in learning in different objects of their learning activities.
Theories formulated by Tenedoro (1996), mentioned the influence of the concept of the present study.This is shown in figure 1. The independent variables identified are the students’ demographic profile in terms of their age, gender, course taken, family income, and parents’ educational background. While the dependent variables are the learning preference in five dimensions, namely: sensory intuitive, visual- verbal, inductive- deductive, active- reflective and sequential- global. It is conceptualized by the study that the student demographics have the influence on the extent preference of the learning style dimensions by the students.
