Abstract:

Nowadays the educational process is being redefined and reorganized in order to adapt to the new environment. It should be mentioned that a pivotal moment was the COVID 19 pandemic. It was then that the urgent need for distance education programs was realized. It is true to mention that distance education must be able to reach remote areas. This should be realized without extreme costs for new infrastructure. Within the context of the online class, available electronic communication systems replace the face-to-face classroom. Distance education provides the capability to improve interactive classrooms which in turn strengthen learning communities. The critical quality reviewers of such distance education programs are the students. It is imperative to organize a system that provides satisfaction to the end user, in this case the student. The current study has as a goal to firstly present a number of learning styles and then define the ones that appear to be preferable by Greek students. In addition, the study associates students’ profile with their learning preferences and the ones of their fellow students. Research focused on Greek university students and has taken place during 2023. The main tool of the study is a structured questionnaire survey along with interviews. Students from Greek universities participated in the research and 311 responses were collected. The answers were appropriately processed into categorical data. The number of questions that the survey participants answered was equal to 124. The survey was based on google forms and the language of the survey was Greek. The questionnaire survey and interviews collected a plethora of data ranging from participants’ profile to distance education experience, learning preferences, and the students’ personality characteristics. A corresponding database was created in SPSS 29, including 124 variables (columns) and 311 responses (lines). A following descriptive statistical analysis has taken place and in addition a correlation analysis. The analyses succeeded in identifying the dominant learning preferences as stated by the Greek university students and also recorded what students prefer in their fellow students regarding learning preferences. Moreover, research discovered correlations among students’ profiles and learning preferences. Highlights of the current study include the fact that students better discern the material through watching a demonstrative presentation of the information. Moreover, the study identified as one of the most decisive factors in learning participation within the educational process. In this context, survey participants mention that they can better conceive the instructional material through performing the practical, experimental and object manipulation via something more of a physical process (simulated or real). The research discovered that students prefer to decide what to do and how to do it rather than to be told. It is also worth mentioning that undergraduate students don’t have preference for tasks, projects, and situations that allow creation of a hierarchy of goals to fulfill. They tend to avoid making lists of tasks. Finally, the current study explains how the profile of the students associates with their stated learning preferences.

Acknowledgment:
The current findings of the research are part of the ODLEP research project (Optimizing Distance Learning Educational Programs) which is co-funded by the European Union.

Keywords:

Distance Education, Students Characteristics, Students’ learning Preferences, Questionnaire Survey.