3. Methodology
For this study, a survey to investigate adult learners’ learning styles was administered at selected Malaysian community
colleges. 14 out of 37 colleges were randomly selected to be involved in this research using stratified cluster sampling.
Community colleges in Malaysia are administered by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia. These colleges were
established with the aim of providing and encouraging life-long education to the community. There are two types of programs offered in the Community colleges: formal education program offers full-time courses at certificate and diploma levels and non-formal education program which is also known as short courses is offered for specific skills and work training. The main objective of the Community colleges is to provide secondary school-leavers with full-time certificate courses and to the local community, the opportunity to develop their potential and achieve excellence through short courses in education and training. Quantitative data were obtained from 959 adult learners who attended the short courses. These adult learners comprised of 217 male learners and 742 female learners. A total of 277 (28.9%) are between 21 to 25 years old, 222 (23.1%) participants are identified to be from 26 to 35 years old, 242 (25.2%) are from 36 to 45 years old, 181 (18.9%) are from 46 to 55 years old the rest 37(3.9%) of the participants are believed to be more than 55 years old. As for the qualitative data, 6 participants were selected for the interviews. A set of questionnaires which is a modified version of the Principles of Adult Learning Scales by Conti (1978) was used to obtain quantitative data for the study. This set of questionnaires has been modified by Spoon and Schell (1998) and assisted by Dr. Gary J. Conti. There are 44 items containing 20 negative items and 24 positive items which are used to measure seven elements found in the principles of adult learning which are 1) Learner-Centred Activities; 2) Personalizing Instruction, 3) Relating to Experience, 4) Assessing Students Needs, 5) Climate Building, 6) Participation in the Learning Process, 7) Flexibility for Personal Development. The reliability is 0.9 Cronbach alpha. The learning style is determined based on scores developed by Conti (2004) and the interpretation of mean is based on Jamil (2002). In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted to triangulate the findings.