Abstract:
The major purpose of this study was to investigate the learning styles and strategies among
secondary school students in Debre Markos Preparatory Secondary School. The study sample
consisted of 289 (168 male and 121 female) participants. A self-report questionnaire was used
to gather data about secondary school students learning styles and strategies preference of
learning mathematics. One sample t-test, independent sample t-test and Pearson's correlation
were used for analysis of dominant learning style and strategy preferences, learning style and
strategy preferences across sex and the relationship between learning styles and mathematics
learning strategies. The results revealed that the dominant learning styles of preparatory
secondary school students in learning mathematics were the visual and sequential learning
styles, which both were equally preferred by students. On the other hand the most dominant
learning strategies preferred by secondary school students were rehearsal, metacognition and
affective learning strategies. Statistically significant difference between male and female
students was observed in kinesthetic, sequential and inductive learning styles. That is, female
students preferred sequential and inductive learning styles more than male students; on the
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other hand male .students preferred kinesthetic learning style than female students in learning
mathematics. Statistically significant difference across sex in their learning strategy preference
was observed in elaboration learning strategy. It revealed that male students prefer
elaboration learning strategy more than female students in learning mathematics. The visual,
auditory, kinesthetic and sequential learning styles had significant relationship with all of the
learning strategies. The deductive and inductive learning styles significantly correlated to all
I.gaming strategies except the former had no significant relationship with organization
learning strategies and the later had no significant relationship with affective learning
strategies. It was noted that, none of the learning strategies had a statistically significant
relationship with the global learning style. Finally, implications of the findings and future