DEVELOPMENT OF PREFERRED LEARNING STYLE INVENTORY (PLSI) FOR STUDENT TEACHERS

Abstract

There are several learning styles among the learners in an educational setting. As a result, a teacher who is adept at determining the learning preferences of their pupils can integrate the curriculum in ways that will maximise the learning outcomes for them. Again, teacher education is more extensive and the programme for teacher education incorporates an interdisciplinary curriculum with student teachers from diverse backgrounds. Therefore, it becomes crucial to identify learning preferences that are more common among such diverse student-teacher groups to improve their academic performance. Therefore, there is a need to develop an inventory to measure the Preferred Learning Styles of Student Teachers, the result of which will bring forth scientific results that will be more reliable and valid as compared to the results drawn from an unstandardized tool. Thus, an inventory viz. Preferred Learning Style Inventory (PLSI) for Student Teachers has been developed. The Inventory consists of 52 items having three modes of learning styles viz. Visual (V) with 19 items, Auditory (A) with 15 items, and Kinesthetics (K) with 18 items. Item analysis was carried out using the Critical Ratio technique, and reliability was established through internal consistency (α=0.877 and Spearman-Brown Coefficient value of 0.889) and the inter-item correlation method (significant at 0.05 level). Further, the inventory’s validity was established through content validity using experts’ opinions.