The Relationship between Perceptual Learning Styles and Language Learners’ Success in Reading Tests

Learning and teaching styles in learning and teaching foreign languages are two interrelated areas. A study in one of these fields sheds light on the other. Therefore, interest in how people learn and how they prefer learning has increased over the years due to an extensive amount of literature available pertaining to both learning styles and teaching styles. Thus, this research is grounded in clarifying the relationship between ENG 101 1 students’ preferred perceptual learning styles and their success in a reading test. In this regard, this paper is concerned with identifying the preferred perceptual learning styles of university students (N= 154) considering their age, gender and countries to determine if relationships exist between students’ success in an IELTS reading test and preferred perceptual learning style. This study is significant as the number of studies based on examining the relationships between success in reading skills and perceptual learning styles is limited. Data were gathered from Reid’s PLSPQ to determine the focused participants’ preferred perceptual learning styles and an IELTS reading test to investigate the relationship between individuals’ preferred perceptual learning styles and their success in the reading test. In the analysis of the data, a t-test and ANOVA were applied. Thus, this survey is both qualitative and quantitative. The results show there was a statistical difference between students’ success in the IELTS reading test and preferred perceptual learning style as kinaesthetic learners significantly outperformed other learner groups