Iranian Architecture Students’ Learning Styles and Vocabulary Learning: A Content-Based Instruction Approach

Tavassoli, Kobra; Mohammad Aghaei, Tahereh; Rahmatollahi, Maryam

doi:10.22034/ijpie.2025.505865.1087

Iranian Architecture Students’ Learning Styles and Vocabulary Learning: A Content-Based Instruction Approach

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Kobra Tavassoli

Tahereh Mohammad Aghaei

Maryam Rahmatollahi

Department of Teaching English and Translation, Ka.C., Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran

10.22034/ijpie.2025.505865.1087

Abstract

Vocabulary serves as the cornerstone of every effective communication as it enables individuals to express their thoughts and emotions. When acquiring a language and their new words, individuals often employ various learning styles to comprehend concepts and achieve their goals. Considering the possibility that individuals’ learning styles may contribute to their vocabulary learning, this pretest-posttest quasi experimental research endeavored to investigate if Iranian architecture students’ learning styles impact their acquisition of technical English vocabulary through content-based instruction. Utilizing three main data collection instruments, including Nelson English proficiency test, Felder-Soloman questionnaire, and the researcher-made test of vocabulary, which was administered as the pretest and posttest, the researchers collected the data required from a total of 60 male and female undergraduate architectural engineering students at the university level. Over a period of one and a half months, during six two-hour sessions, the participants, who were previously categorized into an experimental group and a control group, engaged in technical topics through content-based instruction. To explore the potential cause-and-effect relationships, a repeated measures MANOVA was used. The findings revealed that the architecture students predominantly displayed reflective, intuitive, visual, and sequential learning styles, as opposed to active, sensing, verbal, and global learning styles. Moreover, an increase in the posttest scores of both groups indicated no significant difference in the performance of the two groups in terms of their vocabulary knowledge. Accordingly, it is concluded that Iranian architecture students’ learning style preferences had no significant effect on their acquisition of technical English vocabulary through content-based instruction.

Keywords

Content-based instruction

EAP

learning style

technical vocabulary

vocabulary acquisition

Subjects

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