This presently ongoing study strives to gauge the impact of high school students learning styles (according to Kolb 1984, using the Learning Style Inventory) on their approaches and results when generating learning assignments for younger students. The overall classroom project is jointly devised by the classroom teachers, who are also science teacher educators at the local teacher college (PH Klagenfurt)(1); the author is supporting the team in conducting the research. The theory of learning styles based on Kolb’s theory of experiential learning (itself based on constructivist learning theories and strongly influenced by Dewey’s thinking) seems particularly suited to address questions of motivation and learning in the science classroom involving theoretical input as well as hands-on-experiments. How do the different activities activate different students, what kind of activities do different types of students gravitate to? In our research, we started by administering the LSI to 100 students (n=100, grades 9-11, five classes, four biology and chemistry teachers) as well as an interest questionnaire (based PISA-2006 questions). Students wrote brief essays on “what helps them to learn”. They were subsequently grouped into type-similar groups (four classrooms) or gender-homogeneous groups (one classroom). Next, students created mind maps about a number of specific science topics. They are to decide on one of the topics for further study. In their groups, they will read textbooks and other material for lower grade level students, decide what the most important aspects of the topic are, and how they should be presented to the younger students (by demonstration experiments, presentations, texts… ). In each class one or two of the conceptions developed by the students will be trialed in one lower grade level. Towards the end of the school year (June 2009), students will again answer the interest questionnaire; as well provide a general feedback on their experience of working in their group. The products are collected and analyzed, at key periods the classroom activities are observed and videotaped. (1) This project is funded by Sparkling Science, an initiative of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research

Methods used are ethnography (analysis of the classroom observation, analysis of videos), discourse analysis and content analysis (analyzing the content of the various products and essays) as well as factor analysis and regression/correlation measures for the questionnaires (LSI, interest questions of PISA-2006).

At this early stage, we saw a differing fit of the LSI for different classes. In some classes, the homogeneous groupings reproduced the friendship-networks of the class. So far, the group work seems to confirm the validity of the typology (students in each group share a similar task orientation). At the pretest for abstract conceptualizers and reflective observers instrumental motivation and enjoyment of science both correlated slightly positively (0.2- 0.25, with alpha=0,05). We expect the final results to provide insights into how learning styles may impact the particular contribution of students in science classrooms. This sheds light on how to address students, who are presently alienated. Additionally, this study also adds to the discussion on learning styles (Nistor & Schäfer, 2005), portraying how learning styles may impact the micro genesis of learning in the high school classroom.