How do different styles of teaching/learning affect students throughout their lives?

How do students learn and develop if they were to study alone, in groups or be given an incentive? Many other people asked this question, but these individuals were curious enough to take action on answering the question. Here are results from five studies.

Bruno Leutwyler analysed the differential development patterns of 1,432 students, between
grade 10 and 12, in a longitude sample. In a related study, this type of behaviour was not to expected of children ages 10-12 and surprisingly it was found among students who were age 11-15. Bruno's study showed a significant increase of metacognitive learning strategies between children who were between the ages of 14 and 22. In the end, the data was too sparse to form a concise conclusion.

Professors Borman, Gamoran and Bowdon of the Intervention, Evaluation, and Policy studies studied 80 schools, examining the effects of immersion teaching. They found that it benefited the students of teachers with 3 years or less experience, but negatively affected the teaching veteran teachers. They concluded that immersion teaching is not a bad idea, but needs some changes implemented to benefit both novice and veteran teachers.

Bilal Duman conducted a study using students from the department of Social Sciences Teacher
Education in the Faculty of Education at Mugla University. In this study, they used a pre-test-post-test experimental design collecting the data from academic achievement tests and the Kolb’s Experiential Learning Style questionnaire. The findings showed that brain-based learning showed a more positive result in student achievement than the tradition method shown by their control group. However, they concluded that the difference was not significant enough to say that brain-based learning is better.

Williams, Carroll and Hautau studied students from a large undergraduate human development
course over a period of three semesters. Students were put into groups of 5–7 members, to work together in preparing for an exam in one of the five content units in the course. Their exam performance was tracked over three units: a baseline unit where the students worked individually, a unit in which they worked in co-operative teams, and a follow-up unit after the formal co-operative team structure was removed. Three different bonus-credit contingencies were used in the co-operative learning unit across the three semesters: (a) awarding full bonus credit to each individual in each group if the group as a whole improved their exam performance by the specific amount, (b) awarding partial bonus credit to each individual in the group if the whole group improved their exam performance by the specific amount, and (c) awarding full bonus credit to an individual in the group if both the group and the individual improved exam performance by the specified amount. In conclusion, all three contingencies showed similar patterns, and only top students did better under the last two contingencies than the average students.

Kabadayi analyzed a sample of 232 preschool student-teachers majoring in child development and education at Selcuk University, and 143 cooperating preschool teachers who currently teach in different preschools in Turkey. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the student-teachers’ and cooperating preschool teachers’ cognitive teaching styles. Kabadayi's concluded that it is necessary for teachers to explore different methods of teaching and combine traditional methods with non-traditional methods. There were too many variables missing from the data for a solid conclusion, however.

Even with these studies and more, there is no definitive conclusion on how students learn and develop. Maybe in the future, we’ll have better understanding of how the students’ brain works and these questions may be answered. 

Reference List

Borman, G. D., Gamoran, A., & Bowdon, J. (2008). A Randomized Trial of Teacher Development in Elementary Science: First-Year Achievement Effects. Journal Of Research On Educational
Effectiveness, 1(4), 237-264. doi:10.1080/19345740802328273

Duman, B. (2010). The Effects of Brain-Based Learning on the Academic Achievement of Students with Different Learning Styles. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 10(4), 2077-2103.

Kabadayi, A. (2007). Analyzing the cognitive teaching styles of preservice and cooperating preschool teachers in Turkey. Early Child Development & Care, 177(3), 275-293. doi:10.1080/03004430500473276

Leutwyler, B. (2009). Metacognitive learning strategies: differential development patterns in high school. Metacognition & Learning, 4(2), 111-123. doi:10.1007/s11409-009-9037-5

Williams, R. L., Carroll, E., & Hautau, B. (2005). Individual Accountability in Cooperative Learning Groups at the College Level: Differential Effects on High, Average, and Low Exam Performers. Journal Of Behavioral Education, 14(3), 167-188. doi:10.1007/s10864-005-6296-3