The relationship between learning styles and capability of future research with the intermediate role of research self-efficacy

One of the main tasks of the educational centers is the training of human resources equipped with future knowledge, who, in addition to daily life problem solving can also think of innovation and invention. The purpose of this study was to investigate the direct and indirect effects of learning styles and research self-efficacy of students on their future research capability.To this end, 220 students of public universities in Shiraz were selected by cluster sampling method and evaluated by Wark's learning styles questionnaire (1998), research self-efficacy (Salehi, 2011) and future research capability (Parsa et al., 2011). Correlation coefficients showed that there is a correlation between dimensions of learning styles as the exogenous variables of the model with research self-efficacy and future research capability. Moreover, among learning style dimensions, auditory and reading-writing styles had direct and significant effects in increasing the capability of future research. In addition to direct effects, research self-efficacy could interfere with the relationship between learning styles and future research capability. The results of this research show that learning styles and research self-efficacy can affect students' learning outcomes. Therefore identifying obvious and hidden variables in the classroom can lead to raising the level of knowledge and the learner's capability to create knowledge and predict the future.