The Role of Organisational Culture on Cognitive Learning Styles in Libyan Universities

The main aim of the study is to explore the potential role of organisational culture on learning styles in Libyan Universities. In so doing the research has embarked on a search for a suitable literature relating to both the learning styles and organisational culture. The study has learnt that cognitive learning styles should be treated as the process of mental activities, learning and problem solving and being independent of subject content; and are perceptual, intellectual, personality and social domains; and tend to remain unchanged over a long period of time. Nevertheless, as reported, recently, in the area of neuropsychology the assumption of fixed personality has been relaxed, so that individual’s personality would be changed over time and under different environments or situations. This has led the research to focus, inter alia, more profoundly on two main constructs: personal learning environment (PLE) and personal learning styles pedagogy (PLSP). The relevant methodology has been found to be a mixed approach based on a survey, consisting of a structured questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. In order to satisfy the statistical properties, the sample size for each and every university was set at 300 students, for which the response rates varied between 66% and 70%. On the whole, as argued earlier, the final sample for each university turned out to be sufficient for consistency and reliability of the inferred statistics. Interviews of teaching staff in each and every university were conducted in support of the findings from the student questionnaire. On the whole, the results appeared to be conclusive in terms of satisfying our initial aims and questions of the study. Following a series of statistical testing and analysis, primarily using Structural Equations Models, the findings suggest that the verbaliser-imager tends to be a more common style of learning amongst students in these universities. The findings from teaching staff interviews revealed universities lack of support through provision of resources and funds for any new and innovative teaching developments. It has appeared that the universities, on the whole, have miserably failed to promote any innovative teaching and have denied their students of quality teaching and learning styles. In short, the findings from the interviews suggest that the entire Higher Education system in Libya has under-performed for many years in the two most important aspects of education quality: innovative teaching and promotion of cognitive learning styles.