Effects of instructional material and learning style preference on test performance of undergraduate nursing students

The purpose of this study was to determine how format of instructional material (auditory-only, visual-only, or combined auditory and visual) and participants' learning style preference combinations (low auditory and low visual, high auditory and low visual, low auditory and high visual, or high auditory and high visual) influence posttest performance. The following three predictions were tested. First, participants using both the auditory and visual instructional materials achieve significantly higher posttest scores than participants using the visual-only or auditory-only materials. Second, participants from the high auditory and high visual learning style preference group achieve significantly higher posttest scores than participants from the high auditory and low visual, or the low auditory and high visual, or the low auditory and low visual learning style preference groups. Third, participants using instructional material either over-matched or matched to their learning style preference achieve significantly higher posttest scores than participants using instructional material unmatched to their learning style preference.; A sample of 190 nursing students was assessed for learning style preference using the Nurse Entrance Test and for previous knowledge using a pretest. Participants were blocked into one of the four learning style preference groups and assigned randomly to one of three instructional material treatment groups. The treatment lasted 30 minutes and was followed immediately by post-testing.; ANOVA and ANCOVA with pretest as covariate results indicated that there were no significant interactions between learning style preference and instructional material on posttest performance. Participants using both the auditory and visual instructional material or the visual-only material achieved significantly higher posttest scores than those using the auditory-only material. Learning style preference group did not significantly affect posttest performance. The degree of match between learning style preference and instructional material did not significantly affect posttest performance.