Abstract:
Learning is a lifelong process of transforming information and experience into
knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes. Apart from that, it is a combination
of approaches, which relates the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic aspects. Since
the engineers are designers, there is a need to study their involvement in various
learning styles during the current pandemic situation in Sri Lanka. It has been
noticed that most of the undergraduates of engineering faculties have failed to
perform well in their examinations during the COVID-19 pandemic. This survey
focuses on identifying appropriate means for teaching and learning activities. A
questionnaire was circulated among the Engineering undergraduates from Sri
Lankan universities. The questions were categorized under three major domains
of learning styles and the responses were awarded a Likert scale system. The results
were analyzed under three categories based on engineering discipline, gender,
and year of study. The overall results show that half of the population prefers
kinesthetic means followed by visual and auditory at 31% and 19% respectively.
Under the visual style, most of the students mentioned that the best way to
remember something is to picture it in their minds. The reply from the auditory
preferring students depicts that there is a requirement to provide explanations
for the diagrams, graphs, and visual directions for them to adapt. Kinesthetic
students discover the importance of working with hands and making models. The
results suggested that major efforts should be made to continue to improve the
academic career of the engineering undergraduates with the suitable adaption
of learning styles during the current situation. As this survey covers a limited
number of responses, we can validate this study with the entire population. It can
be concluded that the engineering undergraduates prefer more kinesthetic means
during the study period for the betterment of their academic career.
