Abstract:

Works on Learning Styles have been dominated by application in English speaking communities and a Western mindset. The instruments have been typically written in English for a Western culture. There are challenges for applying English language versions of robust psychometric instruments to identify learning styles to a non-English speaking learning environment. Little work has been done in applying such learning styles instruments to other languages and communities, such as Arabic and Middle Eastern cultures.

This paper applies the Felder-Soloman Index of Learning Styles (ILS) to an Arabic audience. The ILS instrument has been robustly translated to Arabic. The paper compares responses to two Arabic speaking groups in different Faculties at the King Abdul-Aziz University in Saudi Arabia: The ‘Arts and Humanities’ faculty and the ‘Economics and Administration’ faculty. The results are mostly consistent between the two samples. Further analysis indicates the Arabic version of the Felder-Soloman Index of Learning Styles (ILS) seems to be an appropriate psychometric instrument to identify learning styles in Arabic speaking communities.

Keywords:

Learning styles, reliability, validity.