Learning Styles

Learning styles refer Learning style as the Learning style

to the ways in which way that learners models are based on
and conditions under learn that takes into the premise that
which learners most account the cognitive, certain characteristics
efficiently and most affective, and of learning are
effectively perceive, physiological factors biological in origin,
process, store, and affecting how learners whereas others are
recall what they are perceive, interact sociologically
attempting to learn with, and respond to developed resulting
and their preferred the learning from environmental
approaches to environment. influences
different learning
tasks
 Determining Learning Styles

▸ Observation - By ▸ Interviews - In an ▸ Administration

observing the interview, the of learning style
learner in action, educator can ask the instruments -
the educator can learner about
ascertain how the preferred ways of
learner grasps learning as well as
information and the environment
solves problems. most comfortable
for learning.
Learning Style
Models and
Instruments
Right-Brain/Left-Brain and Whole-Brain Thinking
 Instruments to Measure Right-Brain/Left-Brain and Whole-
Brain Thinking
- Brain Preference Herrmann Brain Dominance
Indicator (BPI) - consists Instrument (HBDI) - Herrmann’s
of a set of questions used to (1988) model incorporates theories on
growth and development and considers
determine hemispheric
learning styles as learned patterns of
functioning. behavior.
- The BPI instrument reveals
a general style of thought
that results in a consistent
pattern of behavior in all
areas of the individual’s life.
-
 Field-Independent/Field-Dependent Perception
Field-independent individuals have
internalized frames of reference such
that they experience themselves as
separate or differentiated from others
and the environment.
They are less sensitive to social cues,
are not affected by criticism, favor an
active participant role, and are eager to
test their ideas or opinions in a group.
Field-dependent individuals, by
comparison, are more externally
focused and as such are socially
oriented, more aware of social cues,
able to reveal their feelings, and are
more dependent on others for
reinforcement.
They have a need for extrinsic
motivation and externally defined
objectives and learn better if the
material has a social context.
They are more easily affected by
criticism; take a passive, spectator role;
and change their opinions in the face of
peer pressure.
 Instrument to Measure Field Independence/Field
Dependence
Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT)
- measure field independence/
dependence—that is, how a person’s
perception of an item is influenced by
the context in which it appears.

- takes approximately 30 minutes to

complete, is designed to determine a
person’s ability to find simple geometric
figures within complex drawings.
 Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles
▸ In 1967, Rita Dunn and Kenneth Dunn set out to
develop a user-friendly model that would assist educators
in identifying characteristics that allow individuals to
learn in different ways.
▸ Their model includes motivational factors, social
interaction patterns, and physiological and environmental
elements.
▸ These researchers identified five basic stimuli that affect a
person’s ability to learn
 Environmental Elements
1
 Emotional Elements
2
 Sociological Elements
3
 Physical Elements
4
 Psychological Elements
5
Instrument to Measure the Dunn and Dunn
Learning Style Inventory
▸ The Dunn and Dunn learning style inventory is a self-report
instrument that is widely used in the identification of how
individuals prefer to function, learn, concentrate, and perform
in their educational activities.
 Jung and Myers–Briggs Typology
▸

“
Carl G. Jung (1921/1971), a Swiss psychiatrist, developed a theory that explains
personality similarities and differences by identifying attitudes of people (extraverts
and introverts) along with opposite mental functions, which are the ways people
perceive or prefer to take in and make use of information from the world around
them.
▸ Jung proposed that people are likely to operate in a variety of ways depending on the
circumstances.
▸ Isabel Myers and her mother, Katherine Briggs, became convinced that
Jung’s theories had an application for increasing human understanding . In
addition to Jung’s dichotomies, Myers and Briggs discovered another
dichotomy and thus made explicit one underdeveloped aspect of Jung’s
model
“
 People can be classified into the 16 personality types based on
four constructs:

1. Extraversion–Introversion (E–I) reflects an orientation to either the

outside world of people and things or to the inner world of concepts and
ideas.
▸ Individuals who prefer extraversion operate comfortably and
successfully by interacting with things external to themselves, such as
other people, experiences, and situations.
▸ Individuals with a preference for introversion are more interested in
the internal world of their minds, hearts, and souls.
 People can be classified into the 16 personality types based on
four constructs:

2. Sensing–Intuition (S–N) describes perception as coming directly through the five

senses or indirectly by way of the unconscious.
▸ People who prefer sensing experience the world through their senses—vision,
hearing, touch, taste, and smell. They observe what is real, what is factual, and
what is happening. For these individuals, seeing or experiencing is believing.
▸ People who prefer intuition tend to read between the lines, focus on meaning,
and attend to what might be. Those with intuition preferences view the world
through possibilities and relationships and are tuned into subtleties of body
language and tones of voice. This kind of perception leads them to examine
problems and issues in creative and original ways.
 People can be classified into the 16 personality types based on
four constructs:

3. Thinking–Feeling (T–F) is the approach used by individuals to arrive at

judgments through objective versus subjective processes. Thinking types analyze
information, data, situations, and people and make decisions based on logic.
▸ Thinking types explore and weigh all alternatives, and the final decision is
reached impersonally, unemotionally, and carefully.
▸ For individuals with a feeling preference, the approach to decision making
takes place through a subjective, perceptive, empathetic, and emotional
perspective. Individuals who prefer feeling search for the effect of a decision
on themselves and others.
 People can be classified into the 16 personality types based on
four constructs:

4. Judging–Perceiving (J–P) is the way by which an individual reaches a

conclusion about or becomes aware of something.
▸ The extremes of this continuum are a preference for judging, which is
the desire to regulate and bring closure to circumstances in life, and a
preference for perceiving, which is the desire to be open minded and
understanding
 Instrument to Measure the Myers–Briggs
Personality Types
“
▸ Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) permits people to learn about their own type
of behavior and understand themselves better with respect to the way in which they
interact with others.
▸ The MBTI is not a learning style instrument per se, it does measure differences
in personality types, which are combinations of the four dichotomous
preferences. The MBTI is a forced-choice, self-report inventory.
▸ The MBTI can be useful for the educator to understand in which ways learners
perceive and judge information and how they prefer to learn.
 Kolb’s Experiential Learning
Model
▸ David Kolb (1984), a management expert from Case Western
Reserve University, developed his learning style model in the early
1970s.
▸ Kolb believed that knowledge is acquired through a transformational
process, which is continuously created and recreated.
▸ In this model, the learner is not a blank slate but rather approaches a
topic to be learned with preconceived ideas. Kolb’s theory on
learning style is that it is a cumulative result of past experiences,
heredity, and the demands of the present environment. These factors
combine to produce different individual orientations to learning.
▸ Kolb’s model, known as the cycle of learning, includes
four modes of learning that reflect two major dimensions:
perception and processing.
▸ He hypothesizes that learning results from the way
learners perceive as well as how they process what they
perceive.
 Instrument to Measure Kolb’s Experiential
Learning Styles
“
▸ The Learning Style Inventory (LSI) is a 20-item, self-report questionnaire that
requires respondents to rank four sentence endings corresponding to each of the four
learning modes. Eight of the 20 items on the questionnaire assess learning flexibility.
▸ A scoring process reduces the ranking evidence to four mode scores (CE, RO, AC,
and AE), which are further reduced to two dimension scores (concrete–abstract and
reflective–active).
▸ Two combinations of dimension scores measure the learner’s preference for
abstractness versus concreteness (AC–CE) and for action versus reflection (AE–RO).
The predominant score indicates the learner’s style (diverger, assimilator, converger,
or accommodator).
 4MAT System
▸ Bernice McCarthy (1981)
developed a model based on
previous research on learning
styles and brain functioning. She
used Kolb’s model combined
with Sperry’s right-brain/left-
brain research findings to create
the 4MAT system
McCarthy’s model describes four types of
learners:
■ Type 1/Imaginative: Learners who demand
to know why. These learners like to listen,
speak, interact, and brainstorm.
■ Type 2/Analytical: Learners who want to
know what to learn. These learners are most
comfortable observing, analyzing,
classifying, and theorizing.
■ Type 3/Common sense: Learners who want to
know how to apply the new learning. These learners
are happiest when experimenting, manipulating,
improving, and tinkering.
■ Type 4/Dynamic: Learners who ask, What if?
These learners enjoy modifying, adapting, taking
risks, and creating
 Instrument to Measure the 4MAT System
“
▸ The 4MAT instructional design and the learning-type measurement
instrument is a 26-point questionnaire.
▸ Although there is little published information on the psychometric
properties of the 4MAT system, including the learning type measure, it
appears to have face validity. There seems to be no direct criticism of
the 4MAT model, and it is accepted by many educators as a useful
approach for presenting new information.
 Gardner’s Eight Types of
Intelligence
▸ Psychologist Howard Gardner
(1983) developed a theory
focused on the multiple kinds of
intelligence in children. Gardner
based his theory on findings
from brain research,
developmental work, and
psychological testing.
▸ He identified seven kinds of intelligence
located in different parts of the brain:
linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial,
musical, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, and
intrapersonal. Later, Gardner (1999b)
identified an eighth kind of intelligence,
called naturalistic.
▸ Each learner possesses all eight kinds of
intelligence, albeit in different proportions.
Gardner (2006) also is considering another
kind of intelligence, called existential. In this
kind of intelligence individuals seem to
possess the ability to contemplate phenomena
or questions beyond sensory data.
 Logical-mathematical
Linguistic Intelligence intelligence
Spatial intelligence Musical intelligence
Bodily-kinesthetic
intelligence Interpersonal intelligence
Intrapersonal intelligence Naturalistic intelligence
 Instrument to Measure Multiple Intelligences
▸
“
Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS™) . The Multiple Intelligence
Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS) provides an efficient method of
obtaining a descriptive assessment of a student's multiple intelligence profile. The
MIDAS is a self report measure of intellectual disposition and may be completed by
either the child or a parent. Classroom materials are available that can be used to
enhance study skills, self knowledge, instructional approaches, curriculum planning
and career development.
 VARK Learning Styles
▸ Neil Fleming and Colleen ▸ The VARK model
Mills (1992) have technically focuses on a
identified four categories person’s preference for
or preferences—visual, taking in and putting out
aural, read/ write, and information.
kinesthetic (VARK)—that
seem to reflect the learning
style experiences of their
students
 VARK
Learning
Style
 Instrument to Measure the VARK
“
▸ The VARK questionnaire (version 7.8) provides users with a profile of their learning
preferences for taking in and giving out information. This instrument consists of 16
questions with four options or modalities, and the learner can select more than one
option for each question.
▸ Educators may find VARK scores to be an excellent way to help open a dialogue
with learners on the differences that exist in the way individuals prefer to learn.
▸ The VARK questionnaire is easy to use and can readily be applied in the healthcare
setting. In a pilot study, Koonce, Giuse, and Storrow (2011) used the VARK
assessment to tailor health information materials for emergency department patients
who were hypertensive.
 Interpretation of the Use of Learning Style Models and
Instruments
Learning style is an important Learning styles, which vary For purposes of assessment,
concept, but educators must from person to person, also the nurse educator is
exercise caution when differ from capabilities. The encouraged to use multiple
assessing styles so as not to style by which someone learning style models and
ignore other factors that are learns describes how that instruments. If the educator
equally important to teaching individual processes stimuli, focuses on only one model,
and learning, such as whereas that individual’s the possibility arises that the
readiness and capabilities to capabilities define how much educator may be trying to
learn, educational and how well the person make learners fit into a
background, and rates of processes the information. specific style type that does
learning. not suit them—a forced
choice with no options.
Become familiar with the
different models and
instruments available and
the various ways in which
styles are classified so that
they are easier to
recognize.
When possible, use a team of educators who have varied teaching
styles to present new and complex information in different ways to
ensure mastery of information
Identify key elements of Encourage learners to Be cautious about saying Provide learning choices
an individual’s learning become aware of their that certain teaching that enable learners to
style by observing and learning styles so as to methods are always more operate, at least some of
asking questions to verify increase understanding effective for certain styles. the time, in the style by
observations. Then, from both the educator’s Remember that everyone which they prefer to learn.
initially match teaching and the learner’s is unique, circumstances
methods and instructional perspectives. Everyone may alter preferences,
materials to those unique should realize that a and many factors
qualities. variety of learning influence learning.
modalities exist and that
Always allow learners the no one style is better than Prompt learners to
opportunity to say when a another. expand their style ranges
teaching method or rather than to seek only
instructional material is comfortable experiences.
not working for them.
Of course, it may not always be practical to administer
learning style instruments because of considerations such
as cost, time, accessibility, or appropriateness for a
specific population. Therefore, educators should follow
these general guidelines when assessing individual
learning style:
THANK
YOU!