The Relationship Between Teachers’ and Learners’ Individual Teaching/Learning Styles

This article reports qualitative research which sought to contribute to the understanding of the importance of individual learning preferences, which is important in the light of the current shift in emphasis from teacher centred to learner centred learning in further and higher education. Analysis was made of the preferred teaching and learning styles of two sub groups — engineering and humanities. The research seeks to ascertain whether there is a relationship between the preferred teaching styles of teachers and the preferred learning styles of their learners. Teachers and learners completed Teaching Style Questionnaires (TSQ) and Learning Style Questionnaires (LSQ) which were analysed using four preferences — Honey and Mumford's (1986) activist, reflector, theorist and pragmatist. The relationship between the teachers’ and learners’ preferred styles was shown to be variable. The engineering sub group demonstrate the same level of preference in the reflector and pragmatist categories, but differences in the other two. The humanities teachers and learners had minor differences in preference in all four categories.