Sankovich 1 Kyle Sankovich Professor Christian Berry ENC 1102 15 February 2013 Does a persons learning style affect

their research performance? Everybody has their own unique style of learning and its based on many factors. Anything from the region they grew up in to genetics could have a significant role on how somebody learns. There are three types of learning and they are auditory, visual and kinesthetic. An auditory learner comprehends knowledge the best when they can hear our loud what is being taught. A visual learner performs best when they can see what is being taught, whether it be on paper, on a projector screen, etc. Finally, kinesthetic learners are at their best when they are physically involved in the learning, such as acting a scene in history to better understand what happened. I am curious as to how each of these different learning styles affects a persons research process. In an article by Thomas Huckin, Critical Discourse Analysis and Rhetoric and Composition, the main discussion is about critical discourse analysis (CDA) and all that it entails. The idea of looking at CDA in learning style and research should prove interesting. In another article by Amy Devitt, Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept, she talks about how genre determines situations. I am curious to know how people of different learning styles proceed when they are told to go through a research process. Through my research log, I learned in my ninth entry that using just one source for information is not an effective method. I needed to use multiple sources to ensure that I was making the best use of my resources. This is similar to my proposal, will the use of one learning style be as or even more effective than using all three learning styles? The answer to this will

Sankovich 2 hopefully allow the focus to be on how the use of learning styles affects how a person learns from research. Using a combination of all three of the learning styles is more effective than using only one. Nobody is perfect at one learning type or the other and it is impossible to go through life only using one style. For example, in school for most people it easiest to learn by watching and listening to the teacher. This is a combination of two of the learning styles visual and auditory. Unless you have a disability such as blindness or deafness, you will use both styles of learning to effectively learn. Another example is in sports. When you learn a new play, you use auditory and visual by watching the coach explain a play while listening to him explain it. You also use the kinesthetic style by walking through a play to learn the motions. If you do not use all three, you will have a tough time running the play in a game situation. Therefore, when discussing research performance, a combination of all three styles would prove to be the most effective as reading articles on the internet only takes you so far. Some people are much better at using one particular style of learning and using this to its fullest potential. Students who are primarily auditory learners will be satisfied in a class as long as they can hear the professor while auditory learners will be effective as long as they can see the projector screen or any other visual the professor may have. Although the argument of using your strengths to their fullest makes sense, not everything can be learned through one style effectively. Some things must be learned through multiple styles. The use of learning styles in research is key because other people will sometimes depend on your results. If you only use one of the learning styles, you are putting a constraint on yourself. Your results could be skewed and anyone using your data to base their own research

Sankovich 3 would also have skewed data. The way we perceive the results of research can also be affected. We see the results one way, while another person may see them another. The use of different learning styles can affect the conclusions we draw and the way we explain the process to another person. Learning styles affect many aspects of the research process and can not only affect your research but someone elses as well.

Sankovich 4 Works Cited

Devitt, Amy. , Generalizing about Genre. College Composition and Communication 44.4 (1993): 573-86. JSTOR. Huckin, Thomas, Jennifer Andrus, and Jenn Clary-Lemon. Critical Discourse Analysis and Rhetoric and Composition. College Composition and Communication 64.1 (2012): 10729. JSTOR.