A study of learning styles of adult learners in the Faculty of Education, UiTM

Research has demonstrated that learning styles preferences and how they are taken into account are closely related to learner achievement and satisfaction. This study investigated learning style preferences of adult learners between the age of 20 to 50 years old at the Faculty of Education. The Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS) (Dunn, Dunn, and Price, 1982) was used to assess adult’s individual learning styles. The results suggest that adult learners at the Faculty of Education prefer to block out sound with music, like to study in bright and cool environment and prefer to learn in formal environment. They are also quite motivated, feel very comfortable sharing responsibility with others when they are working and they feel motivated if they learn with persons of authority. In addition, they like to learn by ‘hands on experience’, would prefer liquid intake when they study and they are most effective learners in the morning. Even though there is no significant statistical difference between learning styles of older adults and younger adults, between male and female learners, and between learners of different majors at the Faculty, there is variation in the preferred learning styles of the older and younger adult learners, which should not be dismissed easily. Implications of findings are discussed.