NCJ Number
92310
Journal
Journal of Offender Counseling Services and Rehabilitation Volume: 7 Issue: 3/4 Dated: (Spring/Summer 1983) Pages: 57-65
Date Published
1983
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This research examined whether determining a delinquent's preferred cognitive mode (verbal/analytic or visual/spatial) and instructing to it can facilitate academic achievement, since educational programs for institutionalized juveniles need instructional methods that will have maximum impact on the student in the shortest period of time.
Abstract
Subjects were 36 right-handed students incarcerated on campuses of the South Carolina Department of Youth Services in Columbia, S.C. Of these, 12 were classified as verbal/analytic and 24 as visual/spatial learners. The latter group was divided in half, thus creating three study groups. All three study sections underwent 5 days of instruction for each of three subject units in South Carolina geography, each presented by means of a different teaching approach. Geography was chosen as a subject which lends itself to verbal/analytic, visual/spatial, or a combined instructional approach. The verbal/analytic approach used tapes, lectures, class discussion and written review handouts. The second unit was taught by a visual/spatial instructional approach with slides, maps, and problemsolving activities in game form. The third unit was taught through a combined approach of both verbal and spatial methods. Results were not supportive of the general notion that using instructional strategies consistent with preferred learning styles of delinquents facilitates their academic achievement. However, there was support for this in regard to the delinquents with relative strength in visual/spatial learning: that learner type scored significantly higher under visually/spatially oriented instruction than under verbal instruction. Tabular data and 12 references are supplied.