LEARNING STYLE THEORY AS A POTENTIAL TOOL IN GUIDING STUDENT CHOICE OF COLLEGE MAJOR

Ralph A. Terregrossa
St. John’s University
Fred Englander
Zhaobo Wang
Fairleigh Dickinson University
ABSTRACT
This study examines whether it may be practical to utilize student learning style profiles
in evaluating whether an incoming freshman has selected an appropriate major as he/she begins a
college career. The underlying hypothesis is that students in different academic majors (and
ultimately careers) choose those majors because the student’s approach to absorbing the
cognitive content of the discipline is congruent with the nature of the content itself. That is, a
particular student’s learning style profile is a better match for some majors than others. This
underlying hypothesis can be tested by observing whether different patterns of learning style
profiles can be identified among students who have chosen different majors.
To the extent that different learning style profiles are observed among students who have
chosen different majors, a follow-up analysis would examine whether a student who displays a
particular learning style profile that is common to the major that he/she has chosen would also
exhibit stronger and more consistent academic performance as measured by longevity in the
original major, college retention, overall GPA, GPA within the student’s major and time to
graduation. The results of the analysis indicate that students who have chosen particular
academic majors do indeed tend to have common learning style profiles.