The learning preferences of women working in New Zealand dairying: an application of VARK strategies

Abstract

Agricultural sustainability depends on having systems that maintain or enhance the economic viability and the natural resource base of agriculture, and the ability of people involved in the industry, or in servicing the industry, to provide for their social and cultural well-being. Today's dairy women have professional skills in other disciplines than farming which they then can translate to their dairy farming businesses. However it is important for New Zealand and the industry for dairy women to continue to learn as they can fulfil the roles of gatekeepers, handling accounts, paper work, professional services and be operative in the development of and implementation of strategy; they are an important channel for farm related information. The scope of this study was to consider if there was a clear indication of a specific preferred learning style within the population of women in the New Zealand dairy industry. It is important for the industry to understand more about the different audiences within the dairy industry, by this it is meant farm owners, sharemilkers, contract milkers and workers. Each of these segments 'acts' differently, by this it is meant that each person within these segments plays a different role. Women within the farm owner segment will be heavily involved in the 'strategic' farming business, where as the contract milkers will be more 'hands on'. It is often discovered that within like populations there is more variation with than between different populations. A number of methods have been utlised in anaylyising this research problem. To gain the best understanding of the research problem a literature review on learning styles was conducted which included the review of past studies. First identified were the factors which are involved in learning styles. The previous findings around Dunn and Dunn's learning style model - VARK were studied. Defining the VARK learning styles and previous work and research was completed prior to conducting a review on generational learning preferences, as this has a direct impact on being able to understand the results within the study. The methodology details the way in which the VARK survey was conducted through a focus group and an online survey. The findings of the survey were then outlined and discussed, including the learning preferences of the dairy women group. The discussion was then completed enabling the research question to be examined against the findings. This research showed that the industry that a person works in has an impact on the way they learn.