Abstract:
Students’ enrollment for engineering studies has significantly increased recently with the
establishment of private institutes of engineering education in the country. Owing to this
rapid growth, a significant increase in engineering graduates entering the workforce of the
country in the near future is envisaged. Student’s knowledge, skills and attitudes are the
most important aspects to be considered in order to train them as competent, professional
engineers in the future. Hence, the facilitators in the teaching and learning process should
understand the students’ perspectives and their learning styles and how these could be
accommodated in multidisciplinary engineering studies.
In this study attention was thus focused on investigating newly enrolled engineering
students’ perspectives and their learning styles based on Kolb’s learning theory. A
questionnaire survey was conducted with 116 randomly selected students to obtain
relevant information for the study. Female enrollment in engineering studies was 13.8%
while male enrollment was 86.2% of the total sample of students that represented different
disciplines of Civil (21.55%), Mechanical (18.97%), Mechatronic (10.34%), Electrical and
Electronic (25.86%) and Computer (23.28%) Engineering. Kolb’s learning styles inventory
distributed among the selected study groups was considered in order to identify the
students’ learning styles. According to Kolb’s inventory analysis, 7.1% of male students
and 2.6% of female students were “assimilators”, i.e. those who are best at creating
theoretical models. They are learners who take in new information abstractly and transform
it through reflective observation. 20.7% of male students and 4.3% of female students were
categorized as “divergers”, i.e. who are best at viewing concrete situations from different
perspectives. They are learners who grasp the experience concretely and transform it
through reflective observation. 19.8% of male and 3.4% of female students in study group
were categorized as “convergers”, i.e. who are best at finding practical uses for ideas and
theories. They are learners who perceive new information abstractly and transform it
through active experimentation. 38.8% of male and 3.4% of female students were
“accommodators” i.e. who enjoy carrying out plans and involving themselves in new
challenging experiences. They grasp the experience concretely and transform it through
active experimentation. Based on Kolb’s learning style, learners in the “convergers”
category can be considered as dynamic engineers who are capable of abstract thinking
and having the strength on practical application of ideas and functioning of facts gathered
by practical experience.
Kolb’s learning style inventory is very important to assess the students’ learning styles and
the students enrolled in different engineering disciplines indicated different learning styles,
perspectives and attitudes. The majority of students were not in the “convergers” category
which is the learning and teaching model well suited for engineering profession. The
facilitators’ responsibilities are to design engineering curricula and evaluation
methodologies to accommodate all learning styles to reduce the dropout rate in the learning
process and to increase the students’ interest in engineering studies.
Keywords: Kolb’s learning theory, engineering, learning styles
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