An Investigation into the Relationship between Kolb’s Learning Styles and Learning Idioms among Iranian ELT Students

Abstract

The main thrust of the study was to explore the relationship between learning styles and learning idioms among Iranian ELT students with a gender-based focus. To this end, 63 ELT BA students majoring English Translation (ET) were selected as the participants of the study out of 70 through the proficiency test, i.e. Edwards’ (2007) Solutions Placement Test: Elementary to Intermediate. The 63 participants took the Kolb’s (2006) Learning Style Inventory questionnaire, and the Idioms Test. the test and questionnaire answered by the participants were scored, the data were extracted and put into the SPSS22. Using the descriptive statistics, correlation, regression and t-test, the data were analyzed. The results of the study indicated that the Abstract Conceptualization (AC), followed by the Active Experimentation (AE) is the most dominant learning styles among the participants. In terms of the descriptive statistics, the both genders were found to have similar performances on the both idiom test and the Kolb’s (2006) Learning Style Inventory questionnaire with partial differences. The results of the correlation demonstrated the positive, significant and high correlation between the Kolb’s (2006) learning style and idiom learning. Likewise, the study proved the highest correlation between the experiential learning style (Concrete Experience (CE) and the idiom learning. meanwhile, the study showed non-significant correlation either between gender and idiom learning or between gender and learning styles.