EXPLORING PREFERRED STYLES OF LEARNING AND TEACHING AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS IN VIEW OF NEW EDUCATION POLICY 2020

With the advent of New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, India has a vision to transform its education system by shifting its attention to learner-centred approach for holistic understanding of subjects using different styles of teaching and learning like activity-based learning and teaching in one’s own mother tongue. Students use different modalities to perceive, understand and learn different subjects taught in class. Based on the modalities used (visual, auditory or tactile), students may develop visual, auditory or kinesthetic styles of learning. This study aimed to identify learning styles and preferred teaching styles of current college students between the ages 18-25. In addition, the study seeks to understand the preferred teaching style opted by students. A comparison in terms gender, and educational level were made. Through convenient sampling technique willing participants were administered Barsch Learning Styles Inventory (Barsch, J. 1980) and were asked to rank various teaching styles like visual, auditory and kinesthetic in the order of their preference. Appropriate statistics were used for data analysis. The results of the study showed that college student’s preferences for learning styles were not influenced by gender or educational level. The order of preference of students in terms of preferred teaching style was found to be visual followed by auditory followed by tactile.