learning styles, culture and inclusive instruction in the.pdfVIP

165 IETI 38,2 Learning Styles, Culture and Inclusive Instruction in the Multicultural Classroom: A Business and Management Perspective Glauco De Vita, Oxford Brookes University, UK SUMMARY This article examines the learning style pro le exhibited by students in a multicultural class of international business management, and how cultural conditioning is re ected in the learning style preferences of home and international students. Using the Felder and Soloman’s Index of Learning Styles, this study nds that each learning style dimension measured by the instrument is amply represented and that the scores reported by international students on all but one learning style dimension show much wider measures of dispersion compared to those of home students suggesting that greater variations in learning preferences are likely to co-exist in culturally heterogeneous cohorts. Suggestions on how to move toward a multistyle teaching approach to business management education so as to enfranchise all students in the multicultural classroom are then put forward. Finally, a discussion of the implications of these ndings with respect to the business management curriculum design is provided. INTRODUCTION Many teachers and management educators find that on the development of individual learning style prefer- even well-prepared lectures or workshops often fail to ences, and how educators can use this information to engage all students when the composition of the cohort diversify the way they teach so as to engage all students is multicultural. In particular, traditional methods in multicultural settings and hence provide a truly of uniform instruction seem to be ineffective with a inclusive approach to instruction. student group that is very diverse, with students from different backgrounds an