Investigating Engineering Student Learning Style Trends by Using Multivariate Statistical Analysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper provides a literature review on engineering students' different learning styles. It also provides some statistical data analysis using MiniTab software to put students in categories with similar learning style.
My first comment is regarding the formatting and use of English in this document. In its current format, this paper is not publishable as it has numerous grammar and formatting errors. It needs to go through extensive professional proofreading. As an example, all the uses of semicolon in this document is wrong, the font and alignments of texts are not consistent, the use of article "the" in this document need to be fully reviewed, etc.
The second and most important comment is regarding the main goal of this research and its practicality. Of course having a knowledge of students learning style is useful for the instructors. But as mentioned in the paper and in the literature, different tests proposed and used in the literature are not scientifically proven to be concise and exact. Moreover, categorizing students in different clusters in most cases are not practical as you cannot have multiple sections or instructors for the same course.
The information in the tables and figures are poorly presented. It is very hard for the reader to understand the interpretation of the numbers in the tables and the dendrograms presented in the paper. Moreover, providing the same kind of data for the second class does not add much new information to the paper and just fills the paper with redundant information.
The abbreviations used in the paper related to learning styles need to be explained before they are used.
Tables should appear after they are referred in the text not before.
Most of the references used in the paper are pretty old (except reference 25 which is not that relevant). Better literature review with more recent findings should be provided in the revised version of this paper.
The formatting of the citation should be consistent and according to the template (especially on the use of upper and lower case letters, font, bold-italic style, and justification).
The term Group Technology used in this paper is not appropriate. Classification, clustering or better terms should be used.
One of the keywords of the paper is Kolb. That is not an appropriate keyword for this paper.
Sections 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 are poorly written as the writing flow is not smooth.
The introduction section (section 1) of the paper is very short and can be improved and extended.
Sections 7.1 and 7.2 of the paper are very poorly written and the explanations presented in these sections are vague and not informative. More professional writing style should be used for these two subsections.
What is the purpose of section 5 of this paper? While the authors used a software package to the classification and find the similarity indices, what is the purpose of presenting these formulas when they are not even mentioned in any other section of the paper? Also the formatting of the formulas need editing.
Abstract and conclusion of a paper are two very important sections which in this paper are not information dense, short, and poorly written.
A good writing habit in the introduction part of a paper would be introducing different sections of the paper to the reader. The authors are encouraged to add such paragraph in their revised submission.
Author Response
Reviewer 1
This paper provides a literature review on engineering students' different learning styles. It also provides some statistical data analysis using MiniTab software to put students in categories with similar learning style.
My first comment is regarding the formatting and use of English in this document. In its current format, this paper is not publishable as it has numerous grammar and formatting errors. It needs to go through extensive professional proofreading. As an example, all the uses of semicolon in this document is wrong, the font and alignments of texts are not consistent, the use of article "the" in this document need to be fully reviewed, etc.
Answer: Thank you for your comment; The paper was sent to the English editing service belongs to DPMI. They did a great job refining it as required.
The second and most important comment is regarding the main goal of this research and its practicality. Of course having a knowledge of students learning style is useful for the instructors. But as mentioned in the paper and in the literature, different tests proposed and used in the literature are not scientifically proven to be concise and exact. Moreover, categorizing students in different clusters in most cases are not practical as you cannot have multiple sections or instructors for the same course.
Answer: Thank you for your comment; The aim of this research is to group students into hypothetical clusters based on the similarities of their preferences rather than into physical cluster. As far as mentioning that there is no solid scientific evidence supporting the concept of learning style is to inform readers that the topic of learning style is not a given fact.
The information in the tables and figures are poorly presented. It is very hard for the reader to understand the interpretation of the numbers in the tables and the dendrograms presented in the paper. Moreover, providing the same kind of data for the second class does not add much new information to the paper and just fills the paper with redundant information.
Answer: The tables were formatted by professional editing service by DPMI to be more readable.
The abbreviations used in the paper related to learning styles need to be explained before they are used.
Thank you for this observation; Yes, the abbreviations were explained according to your observation.
Tables should appear after they are referred in the text not before.
Most of the references used in the paper are pretty old (except reference 25 which is not that relevant).
New references discussing this topic have been added.
Better literature review with more recent findings should be provided in the revised version of this paper.
New references discussing this topic have been added.
The formatting of the citation should be consistent and according to the template (especially on the use of upper and lower case letters, font, bold-italic style, and justification).
This point was fixed using a professional service belongs to PDMI
The term Group Technology used in this paper is not appropriate. Classification, clustering or better terms should be used.
Answer: Thank you for this observation, Group Technology is used in this paper because it relates to engineering disciplines, emgineering students are familiar with this term.
One of the keywords of the paper is Kolb. That is not an appropriate keyword for this paper.
Answer: We agree with you; it has been removed from the paper.
Sections 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 are poorly written as the writing flow is not smooth.
Answer: The writing of the paper has been revised by a professional service belongs to PDMI.
The introduction section (section 1) of the paper is very short and can be improved and extended.
Answer: The writing of the paper has been revised by a professional service belongs to PDMI.
Sections 7.1 and 7.2 of the paper are very poorly written and the explanations presented in these sections are vague and not informative. More professional writing style should be used for these two subsections.
Answer: The writing of the paper has been revised by a professional service belongs to PDMI.
What is the purpose of section 5 of this paper? While the authors used a software package to the classification and find the similarity indices, what is the purpose of presenting these formulas when they are not even mentioned in any other section of the paper? Also the formatting of the formulas need editing.
Answer: The purpose of mentioning the formulas as it relates to engineering topics and the assumption is engineering students are interested in reading it.
Abstract and conclusion of a paper are two very important sections which in this paper are not information dense, short, and poorly written.
Answer: English language editing was used to improve the writing.
A good writing habit in the introduction part of a paper would be introducing different sections of the paper to the reader. The authors are encouraged to add such paragraph in their revised submission.
Answer: English language editing was used to improve the writing.
Reviewer 2 Report
Brief Summary:
This paper proposes a new method to classify students at classroom level based on their learning style preferences. Since the previous/current practice considered students’ learning preferences as an individual, this proposed method looks their preferences as groups. This method utilizes clustering analysis of Mini-tab software for multivariate statistical analysis.
Broad comments:
The authors are requested to have the manuscript read and edited by a person who is well founded in English and technical written language
Specific comments:
1. The sentences and clauses in the abstract are difficult to comprehend. They may cause readers losing their appetite for further reading. Therefore, the authors need to revise the writing style of the abstract for comprehension of what message the abstract wants to convey.
2. Given the description of Learning Styles in the section 2, the authors need to clarify why only three out of five learning style models are discussed. This information is necessary for those whose less background in education sciences.
3. The Current Practice in section 3 is also an interesting part of the manuscript. It shows previous studies on students’ learning style preferences. However, the authors only provide two studies based on ILS’s Felder and Nancy. To enrich the manuscript, the authors are requested to give more example.
4. The authors are requested to improve the presentation on Proposed student’s evaluation in section 4 since the section is a critical part of the manuscript. It provides knowledge/practice gap on which this research is addressed to. By providing more example on the flaw of current practice could improve understandability of this section and the whole picture of this research on why this research is needed.
5. In the Data Collection in section 6, the authors are requested to provide more explanation on how the score presented in Table (1) and Table (2) were obtained. It helps readers to follow the methodology of this research
6. In the Observations and Results presented in section 8, the authors are requested to clarify the sentence in Line 303 mentioning “student #9 (…)”, whether it belongs to Engineering Economy class or Reinforced Concrete one. I suppose it belongs to Engineering Economy class according to Figure 1 of Euclidean Distance’s dendrogram.
Author Response
Specific comments:
1. The sentences and clauses in the abstract are difficult to comprehend. They may cause readers losing their appetite for further reading. Therefore, the authors need to revise the writing style of the abstract for comprehension of what message the abstract wants to convey.
Answer: English language editing was used to improve the writing.
2. Given the description of Learning Styles in the section 2, the authors need to clarify why only three out of five learning style models are discussed. This information is necessary for those whose less background in education sciences.
Answer: A statement was added in that regards
3. The Current Practice in section 3 is also an interesting part of the manuscript. It shows previous studies on students’ learning style preferences. However, the authors only provide two studies based on ILS’s Felder and Nancy. To enrich the manuscript, the authors are requested to give more example.
Answer: More example has been added.
4. The authors are requested to improve the presentation on Proposed student’s evaluation in section 4 since the section is a critical part of the manuscript. It provides knowledge/practice gap on which this research is addressed to. By providing more example on the flaw of current practice could improve understandability of this section and the whole picture of this research on why this research is needed.
Answer: Brief explanation was added to this section to fitful your valid point of view.
5. In the Data Collection in section 6, the authors are requested to provide more explanation on how the score presented in Table (1) and Table (2) were obtained. It helps readers to follow the methodology of this research
Answer: A new paragraph is added to section 6 in order to address how the results are obtained.
6. In the Observations and Results presented in section 8, the authors are requested to clarify the sentence in Line 303 mentioning “student #9 (…)”, whether it belongs to Engineering Economy class or Reinforced Concrete one. I suppose it belongs to Engineering Economy class according to Figure 1 of Euclidean Distance’s dendrogram.
Answer: Yes you are right. Student # 9 is from Engineering Economy Class. It was added to the text.
Reviewer 3 Report
Some suggestions were proposed for this article:
Because this study investigated the learning style in the field of engineering education, it is suggested that the authors may discuss more related articles in this field. Several articles from International Journal of Engineering Education already done similar topics.
In the field of educational psychology, the "learning style" issue is a very controversial issue. Many scholars argued the learning style is a myth. I suggested that authors can discuss this issue to create an objective perspective. Please check this article:https://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/PSPI_9_3.pdf
The authors already used the group technique to segregate students into different learning styles of learners. But the authors did not propose related instructional strategies related to those learning styles.
Author Response
Some suggestions were proposed for this article:
Because this study investigated the learning style in the field of engineering education, it is suggested that the authors may discuss more related articles in this field. Several articles from International Journal of Engineering Education already done similar topics.
Answer: More example has been added.
In the field of educational psychology, the "learning style" issue is a very controversial issue. Many scholars argued the learning style is a myth. I suggested that authors can discuss this issue to create an objective perspective. Please check this article:https://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/PSPI_9_3.pdf
The following statement is in the manuscript: different tests proposed and used in the literature are not scientifically proven” is to inform readers that the topic of learning style is not a given fact.
The authors already used the group technique to segregate students into different learning styles of learners. But the authors did not propose related instructional strategies related to those learning styles.
Answer: The following line extracted from the manuscript explain the need to adapt certain teaching strategies based on the learning style. But, we elect not to discuss those strategies in order not to divert from the main research topic.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate the authors effort in proofreading and editing this paper done by professional services. The quality of the presentation have improved significantly and the paper looks more professional right now.
However, I feel that most of the other comments of the reviewers have been simply ignored.
I am repeating some of the comments made by the reviewers in the last round of review which are not addressed in this re-submission:
1. As mentioned earlier by two of the reviewers, the literature review in this paper is not comprehensive. Most of the references cited in this paper are outdated. There are many recent papers on the topic of learning style in the field of engineering education; however, most references in the paper are more than 10-20 years old. There were only two references added since the last submission one of which is a PhD dissertation not relevant to the main topic of this paper. Provide a more relevant and comprehensive literature review.
2. Two of the reviewers questioned the goal and practical application of this paper. Authors did not propose related instructional strategies related to the identified learning styles.
In response to this question, authors mentioned that "The aim of this research is to group students into hypothetical clusters based on the similarities of their preferences rather than into physical cluster." and "we elect not to discuss those strategies in order not to divert from the main research topic."
Without knowing the goal and practical application of this study, the whole paper seems pointless to me. If the only finding of the authors is stating that there are different learning styles as shown by the results of questionnaires, there is no novelty in this work.
The research should lead to practical applications not hypothetical scenarios.
3. The introduction section of this paper is only one paragraph long. Too short and not dense enough in information. More extensive literature review should be added. Moreover, the goal and practical applications of this paper should be explained. Different sections of the paper can be introduced in introduction as well.
4. Similarly, the conclusion section of this paper is too short and not very informative.
5. Dendrograms used in the paper and the choice of terms used in these figures are not very clear. There should be a clear explanation on what is being presented in Figures 1 and 2 with a brief explanation on the meaning of the terms similarity, observation, Euclidean distance in this context.
It seems to me that the same information is presented once in the form of tables and once in the format of dendrograms. Please clarify.
6. As the reviewer 2 previously asked "the authors need to clarify why only three out of five learning style models are discussed", this request has not been addressed properly. These are things that could be clarified in the introduction or section 2 of the paper.
7. Reviewer 2 previously mentioned "The Current Practice in section 3 is an interesting part of the manuscript. It shows previous studies on students’ learning style preferences. However, the authors only provide two studies based on ILS’s Felder and Nancy. To enrich the manuscript, the authors are requested to give more example." Also, "The authors are requested to improve the presentation on Proposed student’s evaluation in section 4 since the section is a critical part of the manuscript. It provides knowledge/practice gap on which this research is addressed to. By providing more example on the flaw of current practice could improve understandability of this section and the whole picture of this research on why this research is needed."
While the authors claim that more examples are added, I do not see any new examples presented in these two sections.
8. In Tables 3 and 4, the last column seems redundant as it is the same as column 2 and it does not provide any new non-trivial information.
9. The second equation need to have an equation number. Also, the question-mark characters need to be corrected.
10. There are still formatting errors and inconsistencies in the references section of the paper. The font and formatting seem to be inconsistent at some points. For examples, look at references 2, 19, 20, 21, 25, 27 and compare them with the correct citation of these documents.
11. Table 5: Concert -> Concrete
12. It will be more consistent and professional to replace the term percent appearing several times in the text with the symbol %
13. "After conducting the survey by each student, he receives the results that define his learning style in different dimensions (ACT/REF, SEN/INT, VIS/VRB and SEQ/GLO)."
This sentence in the newly-added paragraph in section 6 needs to be modified
Suggestion: After conducting the survey, each student receives the results expressed in terms of the scores for different learning-style dimensions (ACT/REF, SEN/INT, VIS/VRB and SEQ/GLO).
Author Response
Thank you for your comments toward the submitted manuscript. The comments enhanced the quality of this manuscript.
The fowling are the responses to your concerns:
1. As mentioned earlier by two of the reviewers, the literature review in this paper is not comprehensive. Most of the references cited in this paper are outdated. There are many recent papers on the topic of learning style in the field of engineering education; however, most references in the paper are more than 10-20 years old. There were only two references added since the last submission one of which is a PhD dissertation not relevant to the main topic of this paper. Provide a more relevant and comprehensive literature review.
- New recent references were added throughout the manuscript to reflect the topic of learning style in engineering and in general.
2. Two of the reviewers questioned the goal and practical application of this paper. Authors did not propose related instructional strategies related to the identified learning styles.
In response to this question, authors mentioned that "The aim of this research is to group students into hypothetical clusters based on the similarities of their preferences rather than into physical cluster." and "we elect not to discuss those strategies in order not to divert from the main research topic."
Without knowing the goal and practical application of this study, the whole paper seems pointless to me. If the only finding of the authors is stating that there are different learning styles as shown by the results of questionnaires, there is no novelty in this work.
The research should lead to practical applications not hypothetical scenarios.
- The goal of this research paper is clearly stated in section 4 and was reflected in the conclusions and recommendations.
3. The introduction section of this paper is only one paragraph long. Too short and not dense enough in information. More extensive literature review should be added. Moreover, the goal and practical applications of this paper should be explained. Different sections of the paper can be introduced in introduction as well.
- The introduction was enhanced as you can see from the manuscript.
4. Similarly, the conclusion section of this paper is too short and not very informative.
- The conclusion was expanded to reflect the goals and the reason behind this research paper.
5. Dendrograms used in the paper and the choice of terms used in these figures are not very clear. There should be a clear explanation on what is being presented in Figures 1 and 2 with a brief explanation on the meaning of the terms similarity, observation, Euclidean distance in this context.
It seems to me that the same information is presented once in the form of tables and once in the format of dendrograms. Please clarify.
- Yes, the dendrogams reflecting the tables result in visual mean, however, more explanations about how to interpret the dendrogram in the manuscript was explained. Please, refer to section 7.
6. As the reviewer 2 previously asked "the authors need to clarify why only three out of five learning style models are discussed", this request has not been addressed properly. These are things that could be clarified in the introduction or section 2 of the paper.
- We elected to change that part and only present MBTI learning style dimension and only to compare it with Felder-Silverman learning style, as it is highlighted in the manuscript. In this case, the reader will have a better understanding of the concept of learning style. Please refer to sections 2.1 and 2.2.
7. Reviewer 2 previously mentioned "The Current Practice in section 3 is an interesting part of the manuscript. It shows previous studies on students’ learning style preferences. However, the authors only provide two studies based on ILS’s Felder and Nancy. To enrich the manuscript, the authors are requested to give more example." Also, "The authors are requested to improve the presentation on Proposed student’s evaluation in section 4 since the section is a critical part of the manuscript. It provides knowledge/practice gap on which this research is addressed to. By providing more example on the flaw of current practice could improve understandability of this section and the whole picture of this research on why this research is needed."
While the authors claim that more examples are added, I do not see any new examples presented in these two sections.
- With this revision, more examples have been added as a response to your concerns. Please check sections 1, 3 and 4.
8. In Tables 3 and 4, the last column seems redundant as it is the same as column 2 and it does not provide any new non-trivial information.
- This is an output from Minitab software, it shows the clusters formations, column 3 is students ID while last column is the cluster ID.
9. The second equation need to have an equation number. Also, the question-mark characters need to be corrected.
- Equation number has been added, we are unable to locate the question mark you mentioned?
10. There are still formatting errors and inconsistencies in the references section of the paper. The font and formatting seem to be inconsistent at some points. For examples, look at references 2, 19, 20, 21, 25, 27 and compare them with the correct citation of these documents.
- We believe this is covered in this edition.
11. Table 5: Concert -> Concrete
-Sorry for this typo, it is fixed.
12. It will be more consistent and professional to replace the term percent appearing several times in the text with the symbol %
- Thank you for this observation, it has been corrected
13. "After conducting the survey by each student, he receives the results that define his learning style in different dimensions (ACT/REF, SEN/INT, VIS/VRB and SEQ/GLO)."
This sentence in the newly-added paragraph in section 6 needs to be modified
Suggestion: After conducting the survey, each student receives the results expressed in terms of the scores for different learning-style dimensions (ACT/REF, SEN/INT, VIS/VRB and SEQ/GLO).
- We did change accordingly, thank you
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors already addressed the problems I proposed in the previous review process.
Author Response
Thank you
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for applying the modifications added as per reviewer's request.
The paper looks much better now.
A serious concern is that although the paragraphs added are properly cited, some of them seem to be copied and pasted from published sources. I used different software packages to verify the similarity index and Googled parts of the texts manually as well. Both methods show that some parts of the paper (mostly the newly-added texts in red fonts) are copied-and-pasted directly from the literature. These instances are not very common and appear mainly in the introduction, literature review, and conclusion sections. Although all of the references are cited, however copying and pasting can be considered as plagiarism. Authors are encouraged to rewrite the seemingly-plagiarized parts or ask a professional editor to rephrase those paragraphs. In its current shape, accepting this document is against the my ethical standards.
Moreover, minor typos or grammar errors need to be rectified:
1. Page 1, There is an inconsistency in font in the introduction section.
2. Page 2, line 2: evaluation purpose -> evaluation purposes
3. Page 2, line 4: is the matching between instruction technique and -> is matching the instruction technique and
4. Page 3, Section 3, Line 7: students took each of the assessments -> students took the assessments
5. Page 3, Section 3, the line spacing is not consistent in this section
6. Page 5, Section 6, Line 5: Consent was signed -> Consent form was signed
7. Page 6, Section 7, Line 4: Students are having very high -> Students have very high
8. Page 9, Table 5, as mentioned in previous review: Concert -> Concrete
9. Page 10, Line 1 needs indentation
10. Page 10, Line 2: This group of students is sharing -> This group of students shares
11. Page 10, Line 2: 505 Did you mean 5.5?
12. Page 10, 4th last line: all of them sharing -> all of them share
13. The format of citation for references 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 42, 46, and 47 need to be modified to be consistent
I hope I have not missed anything. I encourage the authors to have this document fully proofread before publication.
I believe after rectifying the aforementioned issues, the paper is ready for publication.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for his constructive comments, the following is our response to the reviewer:
A serious concern is that although the paragraphs added are properly cited, some of them seem to be copied and pasted from published sources. I used different software packages to verify the similarity index and Googled parts of the texts manually as well. Both methods show that some parts of the paper (mostly the newly-added texts in red fonts) are copied-and-pasted directly from the literature. These instances are not very common and appear mainly in the introduction, literature review, and conclusion sections. Although all of the references are cited, however copying and pasting can be considered as plagiarism. Authors are encouraged to rewrite the seemingly-plagiarized parts or ask a professional editor to rephrase those paragraphs. In its current shape, accepting this document is against the my ethical standards.
Answer: We took care of all outstanding issues, as can be seen in the article itself.
Moreover, minor typos or grammar errors need to be rectified:
1. Page 1, There is an inconsistency in font in the introduction section. : Done
2. Page 2, line 2: evaluation purpose -> evaluation purposes : Done
3. Page 2, line 4: is the matching between instruction technique and -> is matching the instruction technique and :Done
4. Page 3, Section 3, Line 7: students took each of the assessments -> students took the assessments: Done
5. Page 3, Section 3, the line spacing is not consistent in this section : Done
6. Page 5, Section 6, Line 5: Consent was signed -> Consent form was signed : Done
7. Page 6, Section 7, Line 4: Students are having very high -> Students have very high : Done
8. Page 9, Table 5, as mentioned in previous review: Concert -> Concrete : Done
9. Page 10, Line 1 needs indentation
10. Page 10, Line 2: This group of students is sharing -> This group of students shares : Done
11. Page 10, Line 2: 505 Did you mean 5.5? :Done
12. Page 10, 4th last line: all of them sharing -> all of them share: Done
13. The format of citation for references 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 42, 46, and 47 need to be modified to be consistent
Answer: All citation problems have been fixed.
