THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COLLEGE STUDENTS' LEARNING STYLE AND THEIR PREFERRED MODE OF LEARNING IN A FLIPPED CLASSROOM: A CASE STUDY

With the increasing pressure for Higher Education institutions to undergo transformation comes the rise of the flipped or inverted classroom, a new model investing on flipping the usual class paradigm in the sense that students learn initial common concepts outside class while class time is devoted to more active learning and practice. Current studies report that a flipped classroom has benefits for teachers and students as it can support the implementation of a communicative, student-centered learning environment. With the variety of medium of delivering the content, ranging from assigning textbook readings, to posting videos or sending audios via mobiles, there is a need to assess students' preferences in that aspect. The following study involved 25 college students in an advanced writing class, whose class was flipped using two different modes of input throughout the 15 week semester: Reading material from text book and watching videos, targeting a particular conceptual body of knowledge relevant to producing argumentative papers. An end of semester survey measured preference and motivation, and the VARK Questionnaire (Version 7.2) was administered to identify students' learning style (Visual/Aural/Read-Write/Kinesthetic) and examine its relation to their preferred mode of flipped class (Textbook material/Videos).