The relationship between agriculture teachers' learning style and problem-solving ability and the extent of use of the problem-solving approach to teaching

The purpose of the study was to test the relationships between student teachers' preferred learning styles and problem-solving ability and the extent of use of the problem-solving approach to teaching during the student teaching practicum. The study further sought to test the relationship between the extent cooperating teachers utilized the problem-solving approach to teaching and the extent student teachers utilized the problem-solving approach to teaching during the student teaching practicum. In addition, the study sought to describe the teaching methods utilized while using and not using the problem-solving approach to teaching during the student teaching practicum.;The study was descriptive - correlational. The accessible samples consisted of 15 agriculture student teachers and 10 agriculture cooperating teachers.;Three instruments were utilized to collect the data. Validity of the instruments was assessed and reliability was established. Videotapes of three "classroom" teaching episodes were collected from student and cooperating teachers.;The findings of the study indicated that the student teachers leaned toward a field-independent learning style. Student teachers' problem-solving ability was less than that for undergraduate students of similar age and educational background. Furthermore, a low negative, non-significant correlation was found between student teachers' preferred learning style and problem-solving ability.;Eighteen percent of both the student teachers' and cooperating teachers' "classroom" instructional time was spent utilizing the problem-solving approach to teaching. A substantial negative, non-significant correlation was found between the student teachers' preferred learning style and the extent they utilized the problem-solving approach to teaching. Furthermore, a substantial positive, significant correlation was found between the extent cooperating teachers and student teachers utilized the problem-solving approach to teaching.;Lecture/discussion and supervised study were the most utilized teaching methods while utilizing and not utilizing the problem-solving approach to teaching. The experiment teaching method was the least utilized.