Abstract

Several studies have focused on the strategies that students adopt to learn or to solve a problem. These studies, for the most part, highlight the characteristics of the individual or the learner as the main factors influencing learning strategies. In this perspective, the present study proposes a differential and developmental approach and aims to study the influence of gender and age on learning styles. To this end, one hundred and forty-three Ivorian students from the first cycle (6ème to 3ème) and the second cycle (2nd and 1 ère ), divided according to gender and grade level, responded to the questionnaire of Bergeron & Goudreault, (2003). The data confirm the results of previous work that learning occurs differently: students use auditory, visual or kinesthetic learning styles to learn. The auditory learning style was found to be the dominant learning strategy for younger students (first cycle), while the visual learning style was found to be the preferred style for older students (second cycle). The visual and auditory learning styles are negatively and positively correlated with age and grade level, respectively. Furthermore, these learning styles do not differ by gender. These data thus suggest, from a practical point of view, the application of differentiated instruction especially when we know that "academic failure occurs when instruction is mostly visual for an auditory student and auditory for a visual student".

Keywords:

age, auditory learning style, gender, grade level, kinesthetic learning style, learning strategy, visual learning style

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