SILENT EXCELLENCE: A COMPARISON OF THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS AND LEARNING STYLES OF HEARING IMPAIRED STUDENTS VERSUS THOSE WHO ARE NOT

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Hearing impairment often prevents the normal development of spoken language and limits intellectual development and educational achievement preventing participation in wider society.  
OBJECTIVE: This survey design study investigates the learning styles of hearing impaired and hearing students to establish whether or not their learning styles have affected how well they perform academically.  
METHODS: The VARK inventory was used to collect data on learning styles and the students’ last report used to assess academic achievement.Convenient sampling was used to select the twenty one (21) hearing impaired subjects and eighteen (18) hearing subjects. The data was stored, retrieved and analyze using the Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences for Windows, Version 24.0. A p value of 5% was used to determine statistical significance. An independent sample t-test was used to analyze the difference in academic achievement between both groups of students.  
FINDINGS: The results (t33=-2.39, p<0.05) suggests that there is a significant difference between the groups. A significant difference was also found between the learning styles of the students. There is also a significant difference in how they learn. This study eradicated pervasive beliefs that deaf perform lower than their hearing counterparts because of their disability to hear.  
CONCLUSION: Though it was not by a large margin, the deaf had higher academic achievement levels. However, there are still implications for much improvement in the tailoring of their curriculum to facilitate their unique learning styles.