THE EFFECT OF ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE AND GENDER DIFFERENCE ON TAIWANESE COLLEGE STUDENTS’ LEARNING STYLES AND STRATEGIES IN WEB-BASED LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

ABSTRACT

This paper explores students’ learning styles in relation to learning strategies in web-based learning environments, and in particular, how academic discipline and gender differences affect learning styles and learning strategies in web-based learning for college students in Taiwan. The results show that regardless of learning strategy, academic discipline or gender, the visual type learner is the most dominate learning style for web learners. In addition, sensing learners have significantly lower scores in the dimension of anxiety than moderate learners, which indicates that sensing learners feel uneasy in a web-based learning atmosphere, and its related activities. The study also finds that sequential learners are more highly motivated than moderate and global learners, and female learners have higher motivation than male learners in web learning situations. Moreover, students in colleges of liberal arts are less active in web-based learning, as compared with other colleges. Future directions and other related issues are also discussed.