The learning styles of athletic trainers compared with their performance on the NATA certification examination.

Abstract

Sorry, the full text of this article is not available in Huskie Commons. Please click on the alternative location to access it.

199 p.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between athletic trainers' learning styles and their performance on a credentialing examination. The examination, which served as the dependent variable in 9 of the 11 hypotheses was the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA) certification examination. The independent variables of various preferred learning styles and associated demographic information were measured by the Learning Styles Inventory.The nationwide investigation included 165 subjects. Data from all 165 subjects were used to test the two hypotheses where performance on the exam did not serve as the dependent variable. Since 63 of the 165 subjects failed to report their scores on the exam, only data from 102 subjects were used to test hypotheses where score on the exam served as the dependent variable.Statistical procedures used to test the 11 hypotheses were: measures of central tendency, Pearson's (r), analysis of variance, and chi square goodness of fit. The level of significance necessary to reject any of the null hypotheses was set at 0.05.The data led to the acceptance of 8 of the 11 null hypotheses, and revealed no relationship between score on the examination and the following independent variables: (1) personal learning style (visual language, auditory language, or auditory-visual-kinesthetic combination); (2) social learning style (individual or group learner); (3) preference for oral exams; (4) years of college attended; (5) grade point average; (6) type of preparatory educational program (internship or curriculum); (7) number of clinical hours worked; (8) number of study hours.Three of the null hypotheses were rejected. This revealed that: (1) subjects who preferred written examinations scored significantly higher on the written section of the NATA exam than subjects who preferred oral exams, (2) the majority of athletic trainers were individual learners and preferred an auditory-visual-kinesthetic combination learning mode, (3) subjects spent the majority of their study time reading.Based upon the results of this study, recommendations have been made to the Professional Education Committee of the NATA, aimed at improving athletic training education.