An Examination through Conjoint Analysis of the Preferences of Students Concerning Online Learning Environments According to Their Learning Styles

This study examines learning styles of students receiving education via online learning environments, and their preferences concerning the online learning environment. Maggie McVay Lynch Learning Style Inventory was used to determine learning styles of the students. The preferences of students concerning online learning environments were detected through the prioritization of determined main factors and sub-factors. Conjoint analysis, which is a multivariate statistical method, was employed in this study. The prepared conjoint questionnaire was administered both to the entire research group and to visual, auditory and kinesthetic style learning student groups separately. The findings obtained were interpreted by matching with their learning styles. It was concluded that online learning students attached great importance to the employed technology characteristic and to the student-administrator interaction. Considering general of the students, the synchronization or asynchronization of mode of communication and the existence or non-existence of technical support in the prepared environment were not considered important. It was concluded that as the learning styles of students varied, their views about other variables, the interaction preferences in the online learning environment in particular, also differed. Learning styles of students and their preferences concerning the learning materials also showed a parallelism.