Evaluating the impact of a Quasi-ipsative scoring approach on the scoring of a VARK style questionnaire

This paper demonstrated the application of a quasi-ipsative scoring approach to assess the relative strengths of individual preferences in a VARK style questionnaire. The approach identified a chi-squared test as more suitable method for analysing the type of data gathered by the VARK questionnaire. The results suggest that the quasi-ipsative chi-squared based approach does not appear to be as sensitive as the original t-test approach in identifying significant modalities. In order to increase the sensitivity of the test, the requirement for overall test significance has to be relaxed and individual cells considered in the analysis. The findings also put some doubt on the statistical validity of the original t-test approach as it also uses the deviation from the means (in the form of standard deviation) rather than statistical significance, as a tool for assessing the strength of individual preferences. The causes of the discrepancies between the two scorings techniques need to be examined further, before recommendations can be made on which approach is better suited to identifying the strength of individual preference for information input modality.