ISSN 2715-7458

E-ISSN 2715-7466

Journal of Mathematical Pedagogy

Volume 2, No. 1, December 2020, pp. 26-31

The Effect of Learning Style on Academic Achievement of Prospective

Teachers in Mathematics Education

Agus Prasetyo Kurniawan1, Sugi Hartono2

1 Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Ampel Surabaya, Jl. Ahmad Yani No.117 Surabaya 60237, Indonesia
2Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Jl Ketintang Surabaya 60231, Indonesia

Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This study aims to determine the effect of learning styles on academic achievement of prospective teachers in
mathematics education. The method used in this research is descriptive analytic with cross sectional approach.
The subjects in this study were 66 students of 5th semester mathematics education teacher candidates at the State
Islamic University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya, Indonesia. Data were collected by two methods, namely the
questionnaire method or questionnaire through the Visual Auditory and Kinesthetic (VAK) test to collect student
learning style data and the documentation method to collect student academic achievement data which was
carried out by using the chi square test to see the relationship between learning styles and academic achievement.
The results showed that the most student learning styles were visual learning styles (54.5%), then auditory
learning styles (24.2%) and finally kinesthetic learning styles (13.6%). Furthermore, there were some students
who chose more than one learning style, namely visual-auditory (3.1%), visual-kinesthetic (3.1%), and auditory-
kinesthetic (1.5%). After performing the statistical test, namely the chi square test, it is obtained that X2 count =
4.497 is greater than X2 table = 3.9403 at a significant level of 0.05. This shows that there is a relationship
between learning styles and academic achievement of prospective mathematics education teacher students.

Keywords: learning style, academic achievement, prospective teachers, mathematics education

Abstrak
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh gaya belajar terhadap prestasi akademik mahasiswa calon
guru pendidikan matematika. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah deskriptif analitik dengan
pendekatan cross sectional. Subjek dalam penelitian ini adalah 66 mahasiswa calon guru pendidikan matematika
Semester 5 di Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Ampel Surabaya, Indonesia. Pengambilan data dilakukan dengan
dua metode yaitu metode kuisioner atau angket melalui tes Visual Auditory and Kinesthetic (VAK) untuk
mengambil data gaya belajar mahasiswa dan metode dokumentasi untuk mengambil data prestasi akademik
mahasiswa yang dilakukan dengan uji chi square untuk mengetahui adanya hubungan antara gaya belajar dengan
prestasi akademik tersebut. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan gaya belajar mahasiswa terbanyak yaitu gaya belajar
visual (54.5%), kemudian gaya belajar auditory (24.2%) dan terakhir gaya belajar kinestetik (13.6%).
Selanjutnya ada beberapa mahasiswa yang memilihi lebih dari satu gaya belajar yaitu visual-auditory (3.1%),
visual-kinestetik (3.1%), dan auditory-kinestetik (1.5%). Setelah melakukan uji statistic yaitu uji chi square
diperoleh X2 hitung = 4.497 lebih besar dari X2 tabel = 3.9403 pada taraf signifikan 0,05. Hal ini menunjukkan
terdapat hubungan antara gaya belajar dengan prestasi akademik mahasiswa calon guru pendidikan matematika.
Kata kunci: Gaya belajar, prestasi akademik, mahasiswa calon guru, pendidikan matematika

How to Cite: Kurniawan, A.P & Hartono, S. (2020). The Effect of Learning Style on Academic Achievement of
Prospective Teachers in Mathematics Education. Journal of Mathematical Pedagogy, 2 (1), 26-31.

Introduction
Learning is the process by which an activity originates or is changed through training procedures
or whether in the laboratory or in the natural environment that brings changes in performance, behavior
and new skills because of experience or practice in a deliberate attempt (Suryabrata, 2004). Learning
can improve knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Baartman & De Bruijn, 2011). In line with that, according
to Machfoedz (2005) learning is a process of effort carried out by a person to obtain a whole new change
in behavior, as a result of his own experience in interaction with his environment. Meanwhile, according
to Wulandari (2011), learning is an effort to acquire new knowledge and behavior with psychological

26
27 Journal of Mathematical Pedagogy, Volume 2, No. 1, December 2020, pp. 26-31

activities alone. Some of the principles in learning include the requirements for learning methods,
learning facilities, the nature of learning, the material provided and the material purchasing techniques
(Machfoedz, 2005).
Students’ success or failure in learning is influenced by several factors, namely individual factors
or factors that exist in a person and social factors, namely factors that are outside a person (Van Dinther,
2011). One of the individual factors is the learning style. Learning style is defined as a combination of
cognitive, affective, and physiological characteristics that serve as a relatively stable indicator of how
students perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment. Learning styles are the way
a person accepts, absorbs, and retains new or difficult information and skills (Dunn, 1984). Everyone
has different learning styles and if the method of conveying certain learning styles to them is acceptable,
they can learn well.
By recognizing learning styles, student-teacher candidates can easily learn and teachers can
easily teach in the learning process (Dunn et al., 2002). Students will be able to study well and their
learning outcomes are good if they understand learning styles. As a result, students can easily implement
classroom learning. In addition, students can also improve their intelligence which greatly affects
learning outcomes. Several studies have shown that there is a relationship between learning styles and
student achievement in midwifery programs (Wulandari, 2011), learning styles have an effect on the
science learning achievement of grade VII students (Schroeder et al., 2007), and there is an effect of
learning styles on learning achievement of accounting students (Marriott, 2002). Based on the results
of several studies, the researcher was interested in seeing the learning styles of mathematics students.
Furthermore, many experts found different learning styles, including learning styles according
to Kolb (1984) which consisted of divergent, convergent, assimilator, and accommodator. According
to Honey and Mumford (1992), the learning styles are activist, reflector, theorist, and pragmatic.
According to Vermunt et al (2004), learning styles are undirected learning style, reproduction learning
style, meaningful learning style, and application learning style. Meanwhile, according to De Porter and
Hirarcky (2002), learning styles are divided into 3, namely visual learning styles (V), auditory learning
styles (A), and kinesthetic learning styles (VAK).
VAK learning styles are the most common and easy to use (Febriani et al., 2019). The type of
visual learning style is a type of learning style that receives and understands information by seeing.
According to Takeuch et al (2021) the characteristics of individuals or students who have a visual
learning style are skills, and neatness, like to talk, like to make careful planning for the long term, very
thorough and detailed, she attaches great importance to good appearance in clothes as well as
presentations, it is more comfortable to remember what he saw than what he heard if he remembered
something with visual interactions, and was not easily distracted by the crowd while studying.
Meanwhile, the auditory learning style is a person's learning style which is done by listening. Individuals
are easy to learn, easy to respond to stimuli or stimuli when through the sense of hearing. In line with
that, the characteristics of students with an auditory learning style are that when working often talk to
themselves, are easily distracted by the noise around them, often move their lips and speak in books
when reading, like to read aloud, remember what which is discussed rather than what is seen, likes to
talk, and explains things at length (Saputri, 2016).
For the type of kinesthetic style, someone who learns by doing something he is learning or can
be said to more easily capture lessons when moving, feeling or taking direct action (Altun & Serin,
2019). There are characteristics of a kinesthetic learning style, namely speaking slowly, touching,
groping for attention, standing close when talking to a teacher, often physically oriented and moving a
lot, memorizing by looking and walking. , uses fingers as cues when reading, often uses body gestures,
cannot sit still for long, his writing is often messy, and likes games that keep oneself busy.
There is no right or wrong way to learn in the learning process because everyone who learns is
different and has a positive and negative impact on each individual. When students can understand their
 Kurniawan & Hartono, The Effect of Learning Style on Academic Achievement … 28

learning styles, the student learning process will be more effective and efficient. Recognizing your
learning style doesn't necessarily make you smarter. But with a learning style will be able to determine
a more effective way of learning so that learning outcomes can be obtained maximally. Therefore, this
study was designed to influence learning styles on prospective mathematics education teacher students’
academic achievement.

Method
This study used an analytical research design with a cross-sectional approach, namely the
independent variable and the variable that depend on observation only once at the same time (Ary et
al., 2018). There were 66 prospective teachers studied at the Department of Mathematics of a state
university in Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya, Indonesia, as the research participants.
They were in the fifth semester so that the present study used the convenience sampling method (Miles
et al, 2018). The students consisted of 56 female and 10 male students (aged around 20 years old).

For data collection, this study uses two methods, namely the questionnaire or questionnaire
method to retrieve student learning style data is distributed to them via online (Google Form). The
questionnaire was prepared based on the VAK Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ). This questionnaire
consists of 3 styles which are assessed by 30 items, each of which is 10 items for each style. Each item
requires students to answer multiple choices a, b, and c, where A = visual style, B = auditory style, and
C = kinesthetic style. The second method is the documentation method to collect student academic
achievement data. Data processing was carried out by using the chi-square test to determine the
relationship between learning styles and student academic achievement with alpha degrees = 0.05
through the SPSS program.

Result and Discussion

The results of this study will be presented in narrative and table form. By dividing the GPA
from 2.00-2.75; 2.751-3.50 and 3.501-4.00. The statistical test used to test the learning style variables
and student academic achievement is the chi square which is carried out with the SPSS program, with
an alpha degree of 0.05.

Table 1 Results of Student Learning Styles

Learning achievement
No. Learning Style 2.00-2.75 2.751-3.50 3.501-4.00 Total %
f % f % f %
1 Visual 1 1.5 25 37.8 10 15.2 36 54.5
2 Auditory 0 0 14 21.2 2 3.1 16 24.2
3 Kinesthetic 0 0 6 9.1 3 4.5 9 13.6
4 Visual-Auditory 0 0 1 1.5 1 1.5 2 3.1
5 Visual- Kinesthetic 0 0 2 3.1 0 0 2 3.1
6 Auditory- Kinesthetic 0 0 1 1.5 0 0 1 1.5
Total 1 1.5 24 74.2 16 24.3 66 100

From Table 1 shows that the learning style most prospective teachers of mathematics education
have is the visual learning style of 36 students (54.5%), where 1 student (1.5%) with a GPA of 2.00-
2.75, 25 students (37.8%) with a GPA of 2.751 -3.50, and 10 students (15.2%) with GPA 3,501-4.00.
Then, the auditory learning style with 16 students (24.2%) where 14 students (21.2%) with a GPA of
29 Journal of Mathematical Pedagogy, Volume 2, No. 1, December 2020, pp. 26-31

2.751-3.50 and 2 students (3.1%) with a GPA of 3.501-4.00. Furthermore, the kinesthetic learning style
is owned by 9 students (13.6%) where 6 students (9.1%) with a GPA of 2.751-3.50 and 3 students
(4.5%) with a GPA of 3.501-4.00.

In addition to the three learning styles, it was found that the results of the study also showed
that 5 students had more than one learning style (the VAK test results had the same high score). The
first is the visual-auditory learning style of 2 students (3.1%) where 1 student (1.5%) with a GPA of
2.751-3.50 and 1 student (1.5%) with a GPA of 3.501-4.00. The visual-kinesthetic learning styles were
2 students (3.1%) where 2 students (3.1%) where both of them had a GPA of 2.751-3.50 and finally the
auditory-kinesthetic learning styles were 1 student (1.5%) with a GPA of 2.751-3.50.

Table 2 Chi Square Statistical Test Results

Based on Table 2, after the statistical test was carried out, it turned out that there was a
significant relationship between learning styles and academic achievement of prospective mathematics
education teacher students. With degrees of freedom (db) = (6-1) (3-1) = 10 and α = 0.05, it is obtained
X2 count > X2 table, namely 4.497> 3.9403 with p < 0.05. This shows that the hypothesis is accepted
with a significance degree of less than 0.05 and shows that there is a significant relationship between
learning styles and academic achievement of prospective mathematics education teacher students.

Based on the results of the above research, the learning styles of prospective mathematics
education teacher students are different. There are 61 students who have one learning style and 5
students have two learning styles. According to Irham and Wiyani (2013) differences in learning styles
in students are something that can explain student differences in the teaching and learning process even
though they are in the same conditions and learning process. In addition, according to Rose and Nicholl
(1997), it is stated that people learn in different ways and all ways are equally good. Each method has
its own strength. In fact, we all have all three learning styles, it's just that usually one style dominates
those (DePorter & Hernachi, 2000).

There are characteristics of differences between each student and other students based on their
learning style. Students who have a visual learning style tend to use their eyesight a lot to carry out their
teaching and learning processes. They better understand a lesson when shown through pictures or
concrete objects. They will find it difficult if the learning process is packed with few pictures or shows
a little real objects, because the power of their learning method is more dominant in visual matters. In
this study, students who have a visual learning style of 36 students have an average value of 54.5%.
Visual learning styles are the learning styles that are mostly chosen by students. In addition, visual
learning styles are also mostly practiced by students with the highest GPA, namely 3,501-4.00. This is
 Kurniawan & Hartono, The Effect of Learning Style on Academic Achievement … 30

in line with Wulandari's (2011) research that visual learning style is the highest learning style among
midwifery students, as many as 43.1% of students have chosen this learning style.

The results obtained from the calculation of this study note that the learning outcomes of
prospective teacher students who have a tendency to visual, auditory, kinesthetic, visual-auditory,
visual-kinesthetic, auditory-kinesthetic learning styles and after being tested with the chi square test,
the X2 count = 4.497 is greater than X2 table = 3.9403 at a significant level of 0.05. This means that
there is a significant relationship between the learning styles of prospective teacher students and the
academic achievement of student teacher candidates for mathematics education. Students must
understand their learning styles, so that they can choose a good way of learning that suits them, so that
it has an impact on good learning outcomes. As stated by Jalil (2014), the learning process that is in
accordance with student learning styles can improve student biology learning outcomes. Ghufron and
Risnawita (2013) also argue the same thing, that a person's ability to know his own learning style and
the learning styles of others in his environment will increase his effectiveness in learning.

Conclusion
Based on the results of the research above, it can be concluded that there is a relationship between
learning styles and academic achievement of prospective mathematics education teacher students. After
performing the statistical test, namely the chi square test, it is obtained that X2 count = 4.497 is greater
than X2 table = 3.9403 at the significant level of 0.05. Then the learning styles possessed by prospective
mathematics education teacher students are more visual learning styles, then auditory learning styles,
and finally kinesthetic styles. Furthermore, there are some students who choose more than one learning
style, namely visual-auditory, visual-kinesthetic, and auditory-kinesthetic.

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