Vocational Education/Industrial Arts

Using 2,088 eleventh and twelfth graders who represented a cross section of students in Ohio, Tappenden (1983) scrutinized the learning style differences between vocational and non-vocational education boys and girls and the relationships among rural, urban, and suburban students of African-American and Caucasian backgrounds. The Learning Style Inventory (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1979) data subjected to a multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant differences between:

• vocational and nonvocational students (p < .0001);
• 11th and 12th graders’ learning styles (p < .0282);
• rural and suburban students (p < .0164);
• rural and urban students (p < .0002);
• locations and grade level (p < .0001);
• programs and location s (p < .0001);
• males and females (p < .0001); and
• Afro-Americans and Caucasians (p < .0001).

In addition, interactions were evidenced among:

• program, grade, and location;
• program, grade, location, and Motivation;
• program, grade, location, and Learning Alone;
• program, grade, location, and being Tactile and/or Kinesthetic; and
• program, grade, location, and the need for Intake.

Fourteen of the 22 LSI (1977) variables significantly discriminated between males and females at p < .05. Eleven of the 14 significant variables had univariate p values significance at p < .0001.

Kroon (1985) identified the perceptual strengths of 78 ninth and tenth-grade, industrial arts students with the Learning Style Inventory (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1984). Six lessons, two auditory, two visual, and two tactual, were presented to every student, but in varying sequences. Achievement tests administered after each lesson revealed that lessons matched to each student’s perceptual preferences resulted in statistically higher test scores (p < .01). In addition, when new information was introduced through individuals’ strongest perceptual preferences (closest to 80 on the LSI), and then reinforced through secondary or tertiary preferences, achievement was significantly increased further (p < .05). A secondary finding revealed significant differences between the learning styles of industrial arts and non-industrial arts high school students, corroborating Tappenden’s 1983 data. Specifically, the former were less self and Teacher Motivated, less Kinesthetic, and more Tactual than their counterparts.