Learning Styles in Business Management students: An empirical study in Portuguese Higher Education

Abstract

This research aims to identify the learning styles of Portuguese higher education students in business administration, and in return to enable the identification of effective ways to foster the teaching-learning process. The research is divided into two parts: a theoretical approach and the analysis and discussion of the results obtained in light of the learning style of these students as characterized by the Felder-Silvernman model. The data were collected from 3 Portuguese Higher Education Institutions and seek to contribute to the improvement of the learning process in business management courses and to provide for adequate planning of learning strategies aimed at educational success. The statistical analysis of the data was performed with SPSS version 25.0 for Windows and included both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results of the study are consistent with the findings in the literature in similar contexts, suggesting that learning styles vary according to the individual. Regarding gender, a variable that has been studied relatively little to date, there is also evidence in the study that female students seem to use cognitive strategies significantly more than their male counterparts.