| The purpose of this researcher was to investigate the effects of traditional teaching, traditional teaching with learning-style prescriptive study strategies, and self-teaching with metacognitive and learning-style strategies on participant's resulting academic achievement.; The sample for this study was comprised of (n = 113) adults who possessed an Associates degree or higher. There were 39 adults in the traditionally-taught group, 38 adults in the traditionally-taught with learning-style prescriptive study strategies group, and 36 in the self-taught group. All participants were employed at a health and educational institution in a suburban area.; The Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS) (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1996) was employed as the self-report instrument to identify participants' learning styles. A researcher-constructed pre- and post-test of learning-style and metacognitve knowledge was used to measure changes in learning-style and metacognitive knowledge. To measure academic gain, a researcher-constructed pre-, post-, and long-term retention test of academic knowledge was administered to all participants.; Higher academic achievement gain scores on the post-test by the self-taught group rejected the first and third null hypotheses that there would be no differences in achievement between the self-taught group and the traditionally-taught group, and between the self-taught group and the traditionally-taught with learning-style prescriptive study strategies group. The self-taught group achieved significantly higher (p < .0001) than the traditionally-taught group; and the self-taught group achieved significantly higher (p < .045) than the traditionally-taught with learning-style prescriptive study strategies group.; The second hypothesis, that the traditionally-taught with learning-style prescriptive study strategies group would not achieve significantly higher than the traditionally-taught group, failed to be rejected. Although the traditionally-taught with learning-style prescriptive study strategies group achieved higher average academic gain scores (M = 7.09) than the traditionally-taught group, the gain was not considered to be statistically significant (p < .163). The fourth hypothesis, that there would be no significant difference in the long-term retention of information between the self-taught group and the traditionally-taught with learning-style prescriptive study strategies group, failed to be rejected. There were no significant differences ( p < .119) between the self-taught group and the traditionally-taught with learning-style prescriptive study strategies group on the long-term retention measure. Last, the hypothesis that there would be no significant difference in the metacognition of adults who taught themselves through their learning-style strengths, as compared to their peers who were taught traditionally and given learning-style prescriptive study strategies, was rejected. The self-taught group achieved significantly higher (p < .0001) on the instrument that demonstrated metacognitive knowledge than their peers taught traditionally and given learning-style prescriptive study strategies. |
