Iowa
State Staff Development
Practitioner Research Reports
1997-1998

What Are The Ramifications of Learning Styles of Immured Students?

Special Thanks

Special thanks to all who have helped to make this project a reality. In particular, I need to thank the following individuals:

Nancy Noth,

Executive Dean, Des Moines Area Community College (Newton Polytechnic Campus)

Carolyn Waddell,

Chair, Corrections Education, Des Moines Area Community College

Lynn Slykhuis,

Lead Instructor, Corrections Education, Des Moines Area Community College

Karen Ross,

former Instructional Assistant, Des Moines Area Community College

Alice DeJong,

Adjunct Instructional Assistant, Des Moines Area Community College

Patti Peery,

Clerical Assistant, Des Moines Area Community College

Students of Literacy and GED classes Newton Correctional Facility

Pat Sievers,

Staff Development Instructor, Heartland LEA

Cheryl Mullenbach,

Utilization Specialist, IPT

Learning Preferred Channel Checklist

On 5-18-98, the Learning Preferred Channel Checklist was administered to approximately 65 students at the Newton Correctional Facility, medium site. Although the origin of the Learning Channel Checklist is unknown as it was with the instructor for a while, there is the following notation on the checklist: "From Lynn O'Brien, Specific Diagnostics, Inc., Rockville, MD 1985".

Administration of Checklist

The checklist was administered to a combination of Literacy students (those defined as reading below a 6.0 grade level criteria according to TABE testing), Special Education students (those students who require and meet the criteria for special education services), GED/ABE (high level, low level and middle range) students and tutors. The checklist was administered by Des Moines Area Community College instructional assistants who teach Literacy, Pre-GED and GED at the institution. For the Literacy and Pre-GED students, the checklist was orally administered, with the instructor requesting that the student not put his name on the checklist, but merely put his first and last initial. The GED instructor had each student put his name on the checklist. The GED students worked solely on the checklist, with little or no oral reading. At the end of completing the checklist, each category was explained to the students. The instructor spent time explaining the general concept of visual learners (those who respond and "learn" more easily and effectively to visual stimulation and cues), of auditory learners (those who respond and "learn" more effectively to auditory stimulation and cues), and the Hepatic, or what is more commonly referred to as "Kinesthetic" learners (those who respond and "learn" more effectively to moving around and "hands-on learning"). The checklists were then collected and compiled in the central education office at the institution. Checklists were not compared between students while in class. The students were repeatedly reinforced with the idea that the checklists had no "right" or "wrong" answers, that this was merely a source of information that provided instructors with insight regarding the general and specific learning styles of our classes.

Profile of Students Participating in Checklist

As mentioned above, approximately 65 students participated in completing the Preferred Channel Checklist. These students are enrolled in Literacy, Pre-GED, and GED classrooms offered to Newton Correctional Facility inmates through Des Moines Area Community College. The age range of these male students spans from approximately 18 years of age to approximately 58 years of age. The ethnic background of these students also varies, and includes all major ethnic groups. The assumed socio-economic background of the participating students ranges from lower to middle class, with educational backgrounds of no familial educational completion (that of completing GED or high school) to those who have lived with members who have complete educational requirements or have gone beyond the high school educational level. Some of these students have been enrolled in these classes since September, 1997; many have attended educational programs while incarcerated in other state facilities.

Services provided for these students currently include Literacy/Phonics development, English as a Second Language, Computer Aided Instruction, Special Education, small group and tutorial services. Depending on student need, students attend education class for either 1.5 hours per day or 2.75 hours per day. Additional class time may be accrued through English as a Second Language classes which are held Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. Students who are under twenty-one years of age are mandated through State regulations to attend additional class hours, and those students who wish for extra class time attend Friday classes. Students attend class as determined by:

1. unit level -- the units, with the exception of the low-risk unit, are not to mix,
2. work schedule on grounds
3. classification according to scores regarding TABE test, GED or Literacy needs

Included in the computation structure of the checklist are two Literacy tutors, approximately four special education students (Pre-GED and GED), twenty-seven GED and/or ESL students who attend morning classes, twenty-seven GED and/or ESL students who attend afternoon classes, two Literacy students who attend morning classes, one Pre-GED student who attends morning classes, six Literacy students who attend afternoon classes and one Literacy / English as a Second Language (ESL) student who attends afternoon classes.

Students are serving variety of sentence lengths, and follow strict guidelines both for the institution and for the education department. If these requirements are not met, then they may be removed from the education class in which they participate. This, of course, affects attitudes and motivation. While in the education department, students are viewed as students first, and inmates second. The instructors treat the students with dignity and respect, and promote the same from each of the students. For many students, the opportunity to be treated in such a manner is a new one, and sometimes unfamiliar.

Students are given texts or packets to work out of, and instructors provide pencils and scratch paper for student use. Students are enrolled in computer aided instruction particular to individual classes and/or topics that are being studied. Each classroom has an inmate tutor, lead instructor and an instructional assistant. Students are given various assignments to meet individual needs and class-wide assignments are provided with accommodations as needed. In addition, the department also provides ESL instruction. While students who are primarily ESL students were not provided with this Learning Checklist, GED students who still require ESL instruction did participate in this survey. The instructor felt that with the wide range of language barriers and different languages that are native to the learners, the oral presentation of the checklist would have been difficult at best for primary ESL students.

Results of Preferred Learning Checklist

The results of the checklist are broken down into the following categories:

1. Visual (Channel #1)
2. Auditory--Hearing (Channel #2)
3. Hepatic--Moving and doing (Channel #3)

3--if it often applies,

2--if it sometimes applies,

1--if it almost never or never applies.

According to an over view of the results, the following is a break down of the top learning styles for the students in our Literacy, Pre-GED and GED classrooms.

Visual:

24 of the students participating in the Learning style checklist chose the Visual channel as the preferred learning style.

Auditory:

24 of the students participating in the Learning style checklist chose the Auditory channel as the preferred learning style.

Hapatic:

5 of the students participating in the Learning style checklist chose the Hapatic channel as the preferred learning style.

Ties:

Several students, when ranking the specific learning channel, determined that two or more of the channels tied in score. These ties correlated to:

Visual/Auditory ties: 3
Visual/Hapatic ties: 5
Auditory/Hapatic ties: 2
Visual/Auditory/Hapatic ties: 1

Another interesting observation of the results from the check list is the range of difference between the scores. The highest spread between the least preferred channel (the lowest score) and the most preferred channel ( the highest score) is thirteen. The lowest spread between the least preferred channel and the most preferred channel is zero. The average spread is 5.09 as calculated by adding all of the ranges together and dividing by sixty-four.

In splitting out preferred channels between the Literacy and GED, we find that five of the participants in Literacy class chose Learning Channel #1 (Visual), while four of the Literacy participants chose Learning Channel #2 (Auditory). One of the Literacy participants tied auditory and visual channels as being equal. None of the participants in this class chose the Hepatic Channel.

For the GED students in the morning class, thirteen students chose the visual channel as their primary learning; eleven chose the auditory channel as their primary learning style, and two chose the Hepatic channel. There were no ties between any of the channels for the students in this class.

In the afternoon GED class, however, the results were much different. Six of these students chose the visual Channel; nine chose the Auditory Channel and four chose the Hepatic channel as their preferred learning style. However, seven students ranked two of the channels as equally strong in learning preference, and one student ranked all three categories equally.

How Do These Findings Affect Our Classroom Within the Secured Environment?

After reviewing the results, we are left with several interesting hypothesis, and more than one question. Some of the questions we find are:

1. What accounts for the high occurrence of "ties" between channels for the afternoon class of GED students ( 9 students out of a class of 27)?
2. What accounts for the low occurrence of Hepatic channel as the primary learning channel?
3. After pulling the two results belonging to inmate tutors for the Literacy class, we see a 4:3:0 ratio for Visual to Auditory to Hepatic Channels, which is quite similar to the morning class of GED students (14:11:2). Yet, the afternoon students in GED show a different ratio of 6:9:4. Could the time of the day in relation to learning play an influence in determining learning styles? In addition, the afternoon students in GED level classes recorded the majority of occurrences of two or more channels being chosen equally.
4. As these student have previously committed crimes, and are currently serving prison sentences in relation to those crimes, could the lack of successful opportunities for Hepatic learning--i.e., "Hands-On learning" -- provide a connection between lack of success in "traditional schooling" and the secured environment in which they are placed? Could the lack of opportunities to participate in activities, learning or social, such as "Shop" (electronics, mechanics, wood-working, metallurgy, etc.), team or individual sports, or alternative learning strategies (interactive computer applications, cooperative/collaborative learning, video/text learning, etc.) play some part in the omission of Hepatic learning styles seen in the secured environment?
5. Could the high levels of Auditory and Visual channels be a result of learned response due to the process of incarceration? Rules and/or expectations of incarceration rely heavily on verbal response, and a bit less ( although regularly) on written response.
6. How can we incorporate multi-channel learning experiences in a secured environment in order to afford more of our students a chance for success?

Conclusion

In our classrooms, we do try to provide multi-style learning. Our students have opportunities for oral instruction, with visual reinforcers (white board, colorful posters, educational charts/illustrations, etc). Our students also have a wide variety of texts to work with, ranging from low-level, high interest readers, to GED preparation texts. Our students also have access to audio/visual technical learning devices (audio feed-back on computer programs, books on tape, VCR/educational tapes, etc.). In addition, our students who require assistance in learning the English language are provided additional direct instruction.

Several of our instructional strategies incorporate audio-visual and hepatic learning methods. For example, in Literacy class, the instructor uses a phonics program which incorporates listening (hearing the sound of letters, blends and words), seeing (reading the words on the white boards and computer screens) and writing words on the white board and typing responses on computer programs. In the GED program, students also use software designed to be interactive.

This checklist directly correlates with recent research dealing with Brain-Based learning, brain research and multiple-intelligence research. Information in this checklist directly compare with Armstrong's Multiple Intelligence Checklist ( Thomas Armstrong, Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom. 1994. 18-20 ). Upon learning of multiple intelligences and brain-based learning research, one instructor utilized the theories in giving options when assigning task of response writing. Results demonstrated that students responded more favorably with the assignment, that writing products where more detailed, and that students displayed greater ownership of written product.

In summary, we as teachers need to keep our audience in mind while presenting the material which we want our students to learn. It is easy to fall into "ruts" and to teach toward whatever learning style that is most easy for us. But teaching students who are immured shows us that we need to analyze the learning style of our students, and gear learning and teaching strategies toward their needs.

posted February 4, 1999