Gender And Learning Style: A Survey Of 3rd Semester Students Of English Language Education Program In Faculty Of Cultural Studies At Universitas Brawijaya

Many years ago, educational researchers accepted that every individual approaches a problem and learns a set of fact from a unique perspective that different one another. This idea also appears in student’s learning style. Over the past 25 years, researches on learning style proved that male and female students learn in diverse ways. They have different characteristics and styles to deal with particular information and condition. Some students learn by seeing, listening, or giving a logical reason. All those learning styles help the students to retain information longer. Therefore, research on learning style was necessary conducted in order to enhance learning outcomes. Thus, this tudy is intended to find out predominant 3rd semester male and female students’ learning style of English Language Education Program in Faculty of Cultural Studies at Universitas Brawijaya. This is a quantitative research with survey design. The instrument, Reid’s (1984) Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire consisting of Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Tactile, Group, and Individual was administered to 100 students consist of 34 (34%) males and 66 (66%) females purposefully selected students. As the data analysis, Microsoft Excel 2007 was used. Besides, SPSS v.21 is also employed to calculate the validity and reliability. This finding of this study reveals that the predominant male learning style is Kinesthetic and estimated by 14 (41%) students, while female students become Kinesthetic and Group and estimated by the same percentage, 21 (32%) students for Kinesthetic and 21 (32%) students for Group. The result of the study also reveals that both male and female tend to be Kinesthetic. Besides, female students also deserved as Group category because of their social approach. According to the result that Kinesthetic and Group are the predominant learning style, the researcher suggests to the English department to adjust the academic activities with the learning styles to enhance educational achievement and encourage students to take responsibility in their whole learning