Effect of Type of Curriculum on Educational Outcomes and Motivation Among Marketing Students With Different Learning Styles

Abstract

Using an active learning approach to motivate students to learn has been advocated by many educators. It has been an ongoing discussion on whether marketing educators should customize their teaching activities based on the learning styles found in their classes recently. This study uses a scale of learning styles that includes a measure of the degree of student autonomy from the instructor. Results from an experiment of marketing students indicate that courses using an active learning approach consistently receive significant higher ratings on learning outcomes and motivation measures than those using a passive learning approach for autonomous learners, but that there are few benefits for students who are low in autonomy. This suggests that though active learning assignments are very effective, they will not necessarily lead to positive outcomes for all types of learners.