Differences in Public Junior High School Pupils’ Learning Style Preferences: The Controlling Effect of Gender in Studying Social Studies in East Mamprusi Municipality, Ghana

The study sought to establish whether gender influences learning style preferences of pupils in public junior high school in East Mamprusi Municipality, relative to studying Social Studies. The study was guided by Grasha and Riechmann (1982) learning styles theory, which postulates six learning style preferences including Avoidant, Participant, Dependent, Independent, Competitive and Collaborative. Cross-sectional descriptive survey design within the positivists’ quantitative methodology was used for the study. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 230 participants, selected through proportionate stratified random sampling technique for the study. With the aid of SPSS, data was analysed using independent samples t-test to compare the means of independent groups identified in the hypothesis of the study. The findings revealed that there were differences in the Social Studies learning style preferences of male and female pupils in relation to each learning style and gender. However, differences in independent learning style [t (228)=0.570, p>0.05, 2-tailed), avoidant learning style [t (228)= 0.398, p>0.05, 2-tailed), collaborative learning style [t (228)= -0.338, p>0.05, 2-tailed), dependent learning style [t(228)= 1.226, p>0.05, 2-tailed), competitive learning [t (228)=-0.250, p>0.05, 2-tailed), and participant learning style [t (228)=1.387, p>0.05, 2-tailed) based on gender were not statistically significant. Based on the findings, it was recommended that irrespective of gender, management of basic schools in the East Mamprusi Municipality should pay equal attention to all the pupils in an effort to enhance their learning styles in studying Social Studies.