Mongolian students' learning style and experimental learning outcomes

Abstract

Contemporary educational culture increasingly expects instructors to design instructional practices that accommodate diverse learning styles while conducting fair and unbiased assessments of students’ learning progress. In response to these expectations, the present study aimed to identify the learning styles of Mongolian university students using standardized measurement instruments and to examine learning outcomes through the implementation of teaching methodologies aligned with these styles. Accordingly, this study compares different learning style preferences and examines their interrelationships. The learning styles of 986 undergraduate students (47% male) from the Mongolian National University of Education (MNUE) and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST) were assessed using the internationally recognized Felder–Solomon Index of Learning Styles (ILS). The ILS instrument was selected due to its wide application in higher education research and its relevance to instructional design. Furthermore, the dimensions of learning and teaching styles proposed by R. M. Felder were employed to design an experimental instructional intervention. Based on the results of a pilot study conducted among students at MNUE, appropriate instructional methods were selected and organized in alignment with identified learning style distributions. In addition, a training strategy was developed by integrating principles derived from traditional Mongolian science, particularly the central view emphasizing physical, linguistic, and mental purity, alongside organizational principles drawn from management science. The experimental implementation involved 65 second-year undergraduate students majoring in Learning and Teaching at the School of Social Sciences. The instructional strategy was applied over the experimental period, and students’ learning outcomes were evaluated using pre- and post-intervention assessments. Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference between pre-test and post-test learning outcomes (p = 0.000), with mean scores increasing from 78.78 to 91.68, respectively. Moreover, a strong positive correlation was observed between the overall pre- and post-test assessments (R = 0.825). These results indicate that the instructional intervention, designed in accordance with students’ learning styles and culturally grounded pedagogical principles, contributed to a statistically significant improvement in learning outcomes, suggesting the effectiveness of the proposed training approach.