The results of “2009 Academic Year Freshman Learning Style Survey” was announced. The major part of TKU freshmen, 89.73% of the participants, belong to “Pictorial/Visual Type.” This figure is similar to that in 2008 academic year--89.14%. This indicates that most students prefer to learn through picture, figure, procedure graph, timetable, film, or practices.
The survey divides the learning style into four aspects and eight types, including “active type vs. reflective type,” “sensory type vs. instinctive type,” “visual/graphic type vs. oral/audio type,” “step-by-step type vs. total type.” In term of learning attitude, the 2009 freshmen tend to be “active,” while the 2008 freshmen tend to be more “reflective.” In the other three aspects the freshmen of the two years are similar: “sensory type” of learning method, “visual/graphic type” of learning sensibility, “total type” of thinking mode. These penchants indicate that these students prefer group discussion to lessons without direct connection to real life, and that they favor film and graphic aids to assist their study and they strengthen memory by procedure chart and timetable, and they like to jump from one topic to another.
Huang Ru-chieh, Section Chief of Student Learning Support Section, indicates that the survey aims to help students understand their learning situations and to help teachers grasp students’ learning status and adopt suitable teaching mode for their students.
Dr. Shaw Reuy-shiang, Director of Cham Pion Incubation Center, reflects on the survey result that according to his years of researches on educational information, graphics, thought more acceptable for normal people, can only help in constructing basic concepts of knowledge, which have to be deepened by verbal studies in order to build a profound education. “In my teaching, I often think about how to explain difficult knowledge with more student-friendly way. I have adopted ‘Takahashi Method’ (using big-sized text as visual), which impresses my student very much,” Dr. Shaw added. Dr. Yang Ming-yu, Chair of Dept. of Mass Communication, remarks that thought visualized content is more attractive for students, oral/audio learning should not be neglected in order to absorb diversified knowledge.
Huang Chi-hua, sophomore of Dept. of Transportation Management, expressed that she hope teachers to take this survey result as reference to benefit students’ learning efficiency. Wu Pei-hua, a teaching assistant of Dept. of Accounting, remarks that proper learning method in a university is different from that in a high school; though there are books explain specialized subjects in cartoons or graphics, which may be useful for beginner, studying verbal texts are indispensible to nurture a specialized knowledge and skills. ( ~Chen Chi-szu )
