An Exploratory Study of Preferred Learning Styles of Visually Impaired Children
Keywords:
preferred learning styles, children with visual impairment, VARK model of learning stylesAbstract
The research was designed to explore the learning styles preferred by the
children with visual impairment. A survey was conducted to collect
information from 50 males and 50 female students with visual impairment
studying in grade six to ten at government special education schools for
visually impaired in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, selected through simple
random technique. The younger version of Visual, Aural, Read/write, and
Kinesthetic (VARK) questionnaire containing four sub scales for each
sensory modality was used as a research tool. The tool was administered after pilot testing. Results of this study showed that the reading/writing style of learning was the most preferred learning style by students with visual impairment. Gender differences were not found significant on visual and oral sub scales, whereas boys and girls were found significantly different on two learning styles; i) read/write, and ii) kinesthetic. The study concludes that reading/writing style of learning is the most preferred style
by the visually impaired students and the visually impaired boys also take interest in kinesthetic style of learning. The study recommends the teachers of visually impaired students, to opt the teaching strategies as per their preferred style of learning; i.e. reading/writing style of learning.