IMPACT OF LEARNING AND THINKING STYLES ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS OF MYSURU DISTRICT

Learning and Thinking styles are the ways students take in process and remember information. The present study was undertaken to know the effect of learning and thinking styles on academic achievement of secondary school students. Academic achievement was treated as dependent variable whereas learning and thinking styles are independent variables. Both the hemisphere of brain and their functions consider knowing the holistic performances of the students.  Locality, Gender and Type of school were treated as background variables. A sample of 240 secondary school students was selected through multi-stage random sampling technique. Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT) test developed by Venkataraman (2011) was used to measure learning and thinking style of students in terms of their hemisphericity functions of the brain. The obtained data were analyzed using Three Way ANOVA with 2×2×2 factorial design. Levines Test of Homogeneity of Variance was also applied to test the assumption of homogeneity of variance for ANOVA. Main effects of learning and thinking style, locality and gender on academic achievement of secondary school students were found to be significant. Significant interaction effect of learning & thinking style and locality learning & thinking style and gender was reported on academic achievement of secondary school students. The findings of the present study have an implication for teachers that they should find out the domain part of their students brains first and then use the appropriate classroom techniques, methods and tools according to them only then better and greater learning can be accomplished. Results of the study revealed that Active Learning Styles were effective in enhancing the Thinking Styles and Academic Achievement among the secondary school students. The study also showed a positive significant correlation between Thinking Styles and Academic Achievement among Secondary school students.