Investigating relationship between accounting students' learning style preferences and their academic performance at a University of Technology in South Africa

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the association between accounting students' learning style preferences and their academic performance at an institution of higher learning in South Africa. Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (LSI) was used to identify the learning style preferences of the first, second and third year accounting students. The students' academic performance for accounting was based on the scores obtained in the final examination assessment component. A purposeful sample of first, second and third year students registered for a Bachelor of Education degree were used in this study. The findings indicated that the majority of the first-year students were the convergers whereas the results for the second and third year students revealed that the majority were divergers. The results further revealed that the relationship between first year students' learning styles and academic performance was significant whereas there was no significant relationship between second and third year students' learning styles and their academic performance.