RAPPORT
WWW.RECORDINGACHIEVEMENT.ORG
Issue 1 (2015)
intervene when students are having difficulties
(Li et al., 2008; DeYoung, 2009). The Honey and
Mumford learning style theory was chosen
(Honey and Mumford 2000a). Firstly, because
learning styles were described as changeable,
and the theory seemed to be built on an
understanding of learning that includes learning
as an acting, experiencing, perceiving,
reflecting, delving, and planning process, where
learners communicate, interact, and co-operate
with other and with the surroundings (Honey and
Mumford 2000a). In order to tally with
acknowledgement of different intelligences and
ways of learning and with inclusivity as the
principle of learning in the ePortfolio, the chosen
learning style theory had to be building on a
broader understanding of learning style than
field-dependence
and
field-independence,
which according to Coffield et al. (2004a) and
Cassidy (2004) is the case in the learning style
theory of Witkin. Secondly, because The Danish
Knowledge Centre for e-learning had a learning
style indicator inspired by the Honey and
Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire. The
indicator was developed for Danish conditions
by the company @ventures.
Methods
The aim of the study was to investigate learning
mediated by the mandatory part of ePortfolio in
clinical settings within Nursing Education. The
design takes a phenomenological-hermeneutic
approach
inspired
by
the
American
ethnographer James P. Spradley’s methodology
of participant observation (Spradley 1980) and
the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s
philosophy of narratives and interpretation
(Ricoeur 1976; 1991; Pedersen 1999).
Settings and Participants
The setting was Course 4, a ten-week clinical
course in Basic Nursing within the first year of
the Danish nursing education programme. The
clinical placements were three hospitals and a
nursing home. These settings were chosen
because it was only at these locations where the
ePortfolio designed to facilitate four learning
styles had been implemented for a year. The
inclusion criteria were students about to begin
the course. To include students with different
ways of learning, 40 first-year students
answered a 40-question learning-style indicator.
It showed students´ preferred learning style and
learning styles profile (Figure 1) (Ventures,
1995).
Formerly, the indicator was tested on young
people and adults in comparison with Honey and
Mumford’s 80-question questionnaire and
returned scores of very accurate, accurate, or
reasonably accurate for approximately 92% of
users (Ventures, 1995). The indicator provided
an impression of whether the students´
preferred learning style was the activist,
reflector, theorist or pragmatist style. Based on
this, the students were divided into four
subgroups. From each group, three students
were randomly assigned using a random
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