Students' academic performance in nursing as a function of student and faculty learning style congruency

The purposes of this study were to identify learning styles of traditional baccalaureate nursing students, registered nurse baccalaureate students, baccalaureate nursing students holding a previous non-nursing degree, and nursing educators and to determine the effects of teacher/student learning style congruency on academic performance, when controlled for students' previous academic achievement. Kolb's Learning Style Inventory and a Descriptive Data Questionnaire were administered to 334 nursing students and their respective nurse educators from two nursing schools in Mississippi. Learning style scores were computed and faculty and student learning style congruency was described as: 1) matched on both abstract-concrete and active-reflective dimensions; 2) matched on only the abstract-concrete dimension; 3) matched on only the active-reflective dimension; or 4) not matched on either dimension. There were no significant differences in learning style among the three groups of nursing students, and learning style congruency between student and faculty did not appear to significantly affect academic performance of students.