a correlation study of learning style across learner resilience

Learning styles are defined as an individual’s natural, habitual, and preferred way of absorbing, processing, and retaining new information and skills (kinsella, 1995, p. 171) and resilience has been defined as the capacity of a dynamic system to withstand or recover from significant challenges that threaten its stability, viability, or development (masten, 2011, p. 494). regarding the significance of the learning styles and resilience in the process of learning a language, the main aim of this study is a correlation study of learning style across learner resilience. to achieve the objectives of the study, a total number of 128 male and female students with ages ranging from 18 to 25 years old voluntarily participated in this study. after administration of an oxford placement test (opt), 92 homogenized participants who scored one standard deviation above and below the mean were selected as the sample of the study. on the second session, the resilience scale developed by connor and davidson (2003) was given to the 92 selected participants as the sample of the study. on the third session, the kolb’s learning styles inventory was administered to the sample of the study. the results of spearman rank-order correlation showed that there was an average positive relationship between learner resilience and visual style, which was also statistically significant; there was also an average positive relationship between learner resilience and auditory style, which was also statistically significant; and finally, there was an average positive relationship between learner resilience and kinesthetic style, which was also statistically significant. therefore, the first null hypothesis was rejected, i.e. there was a statistically significant relationship between learning styles and learner resilience. for the second null hypothesis, the result of the man- whitney u test for the comparison of males and females revealed no significant difference between the male and the female participants as to their visual style; no significant difference between the male and the female participants as to their auditory style; and no significant difference between the male and the female participants as to their kinesthetic style. hence, the second null hypothesis that there is not any statistically significant difference between male and female participants in their learning styles was not rejected. it means that gender had no role in learning styles in this particular study. implications and suggestions for educators, learners, syllabus designers, and material developers were presented.