SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN LEARNING STYLES AMONG STUDENTS IN UNIVERSITY PROGRAMS: A MEXICAN SAMPLE

This article makes two different contributions: an analysis of learning styles among undergraduate students in different academic programs, and a proposed regrouping of programs in order to improve teaching practice. The study was conducted in Mexico City in a Mexican private university (Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico - ITAM), among a sampling of 753 first-year students in 11 undergraduate degree programs, applying the learning styles questionnaire developed by Felder and Silverman. The results of our research showed that there were similarities between the learning styles of some programs, which can be grouped into four major categories: 1) active, sensitive, visual and sequential learning styles in the Administration, Business Engineering, Economics, Industrial Engineering and Law programs; 2) active-reflective, sensitive, visual and sequential learning styles in the Actuarial and Accounting programs; 3) active-reflective, sensitive-intuitive, visual and sequential-global in the Applied Mathematics, Computer Engineering and Telematics Engineering programs; 4) active, sensitive-intuitive, visual and sequential-global in the International Relations program. The results of our investigation imply that courses should be planned taking into account learning styles shared by the students in different programs, adjusting teaching techniques-electronic media, for example-in order to optimize learning.