HOW TO MATCH LEARNING STYLES WITH LEARNING STRATEGIES IN BUSINESS DEGREE

The development of transversal competences and skills in the new Business Degree at the School of Vitoria-Gasteiz (University of the Basque Country) is being deeply analyzed within the frame of an Educational Innovation Project. One of the objectives supported by the team involved in this project is to examine and give advice about the difficulties found by the teachers in the effective development of the competences of the students in their subjects, designing and disseminating practical guides for each of the competences to be acquired by graduates. Throughout the process of developing educational guides for competences, the importance of a good design of the learning activities based on the competences to be developed in each subject has been highlighted. Such a design will not be entirely effective if we ignore the way students are learning, since each person, depending on personal and environmental factors, acquires and processes information through different sensorial modalities. The main goal of this paper is to present a first approach to the students' learning styles in our School. In order to achieve this aim, the VARK survey was carried out, which is an instrument that classifies students as to their preference in learning: visual, auditory, reading and writing or kinesthetic. The results of this study are analyzed from two points of view. First, this work examines whether the basic personal characteristics of students are related to their learning preferences. In particular, we analyze whether there are significant differences between learning styles and the gender variable, as well as between those styles and the course/year the students are in. Second, teachers' knowledge of the characteristics of our students, and in particular, awareness of their preference for the auditory and kinesthetic modalities, can enhance the effectiveness of current teaching practices. So, teachers can develop strategies to help students in acquiring skills. This issue is critical in the context of the current reform in higher education in which the students must assume an active role in their own learning.