Learning Styles in the e-Learning Environment: The Approaches and Research on Longitudinal Changes

The paper focuses on the field of learning styles in e-learning. The study is structured in two main parts: (1) a brief overview of traditional approaches to learning styles is presented and their role in the process of instruction is set; this part results in the reflection of current state, when learning styles are considered within e-learning; (2) results of meta-analysis dealing with learning styles in the e-learning environment are introduced focusing on two periods (2001-2007, 2008-2014) and journals in selected databases ProQuest Central, Elsevier Science Direct and ERIC. Totally 5,361 papers were collected and structured according to three criteria: (1) time period, (2) relevancy of information sources and (3) relevant key words. Collected data underwent the chí-squared test for independence and the analysis of adjusted residuals on the significance level a=0.05. No statistically significant changes were discovered in the research sample, however, some shifts were detected in this field. Finally, the results were discussed and relating conclusions provided.