Learning style preferences as determinants of academic achievement among public junior high school pupils in the Effutu municipality

The study sought to investigate the learning style preferences and how it affects the
academic achievement among students in public junior high schools in the Effutu Municipality in
the Central Region of Ghana. The study was grounded in Fleming’s (1995) VAK learning style
theory. The descriptive survey design was used and was aligned with positivist paradigm where
532 public junior high school pupils were chosen through the stratified random sampling
technique. A reliability coefficient of not less than 0.70 was realized for all the various constructs.
The data gathered through questionnaire were analysed using both descriptive (mean, standard
deviation) and inferential (Pearson Moment Correlation) statistics. The study revealed that the
visual learning style was most dominantly preferred (M = 3.88, SD = 0.62), followed by kinesthetic
(M = 3.67, SD = 0.72), and auditory (M = 3.58, SD = 0.66) learning styles. Besides, it was
established that generally there was a strong and statistically significant positive relationship
between learning styles preferences of pupils’ and academic achievement (r = 0.861, p = 0.000,
2-tailed). Therefore, it was recommended that the Effutu Municipal Education Directorate should
collaborate with school guidance and counseling coordinators to plan and execute academic
programmes such as workshops and seminars to expose teachers to adopt and practice
instructional pedagogies to meet the varied learning style preferences of pupils so as to boost their
academic achievement.
KEYWORDS: learning style preferences, academic achievement, junior high school pupils,
instructional pedagogies