Learning Style and Academic Achievement of Secondary School Students

Learning style refers to the ability of learners to perceive and process information in learning situations. One of the most important uses of learning styles is that it makes it easy for teachers to incorporate them into their teaching. There are different learning styles. Three of the most popular ones are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic in which students take in information. This study is an analysis of learning styles prevalent among secondary school students. It was conducted on three learning styles- visual, auditory and kinesthetic (VAK). It also tries to find out relation and effect of different learning styles on academic achievements of students. A sample of 200 students of class 9th, 10th and 11th standard of Maharashtra state was selected for the study. Findings of the study reveal that, kinesthetic learning style was found to be more prevalent than visual and auditory learning styles among secondary school students. There exist positive high correlation between kinesthetic learning style and academic achievement. The main effects of the three variables - visual, auditory and kinesthetic are significant on academic achievement. Key words: learning, learning style, academic achievement