VARK learning styles in a university virtual classroom; a tool to improve the academic performance

Abstract

Undergraduate students have problems understanding the material presented when it does not match their learning style. This hinders teaching and makes it more complicated for the professor in a virtual classroom, where contact is limited. The objective of the research aims at describing the impact of the implementation of a multimodal virtual classroom with materials presented according to the different learning styles of the students, as well as describing their experiences during its implementation. A flexible, multimodal learning environment is developed according to their cognitive needs in order to improve their academic performance. Fleming’s VARK questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were applied to evaluate the student’s experience. In this learning environment, the students feel more motivated and have better performance on a multimodal virtual classroom because the proposed material is easier to understand. As a result, the students identified more interest from the teachers, so reciprocally they increased their effort. This means that implementing this strategy fosters autonomous learning and the content course becomes meaningful learning for the students, which significantly increases educational quality.