LEARNING STYLES OF ERGONOMICS STUDENTS AT UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL AND IN INDUSTRY

According to recent studies engineering Students tend to have a preference for Active, Sensing, Visual, and Sequential learning [1]. These preferences tend to be higher than among the population at large. For example, amongst American high school Students, 60% are reported to be visual dominant learners. [2]. The study conducted by Zywno identified 70% to 90% of engineering students as visual learners [3]. The specific purpose of this research was to study the learning styles of ergonomics students who typically comprise a mix of science and engineering Students, both at undergraduate level and also for industrial workers studying ergonomics as part of a course in health and safety at night. The study comprised 22 undergraduate students studying physical ergonomics and 24 Safety Practitioners from industry who were studying ergonomics on a health and safety night-time programme. Preferred learning styles were assessed using the Felder Soloman Index of Learning Styles (ILS) [5]. While the groups would have comprised quite varying levels of aptitude, a clear trend emerged across the participants indicating a bias towards active learning (68-83%) (versus reflective) intuitive learning 67-100% (versus sensing) visual (50-86%) (versus verbal) and global (66-68%) (versus sequential). These results are used to derive theories for restructuring the delivery of ergonomics instruction.