Who invented the learning style inventory

The MBTI is a personality inventory based on Jung's work that looks at personality across four major dimensions. People high on extraversion and active experimentation tend to be doers, while those high on introversion and reflective observation tend to be watchers.

Those high in the feeling and concrete experience areas tend to be more focused on the here-and-now, while those high in the areas of thinking and abstract conceptualization prefer to focus on theoretical concepts.

In one survey of students, Kolb and Goldman found that there was a correlation between student learning styles and their chosen departmental major. Students who planned to graduate in their selected major had learning styles that were strongly related to their areas of interest. For example, students entering management fields had a more accommodative style, while those pursuing mathematics degrees had a more assimilative approach.

The results also indicated that students who were pursuing a degree aligned with their learning style had a greater commitment to their field than did students who were pursuing degrees not related to their learning preferences. The concept of learning styles has been criticized by many and experts suggest that there is little evidence to support the existence of learning styles at all.

One large-scale study looked at more than 70 different learning style theories and concluded that each lacked enough valid research to support its claims. Educator Mark K. Smith argued that Kolb's model is supported only by weak empirical evidence and that the learning process is actually far more complex than the theory suggests. He also noted that the theory fails to fully acknowledge how different experiences and cultures may impact the learning process.

Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Kolb, D. Zhang L-fang, Sternberg RJ. The Nature of Intellectual Styles. New York, NY: Routledge; Alfred P. Sloan School of Management; Smith MK. David A. Kolb on Experiential Learning. Published Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellMind. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.

These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. This inventory can serve as a stimulus for you to interpret and reflect on the ways you prefer to learn in specific settings. Learning can be described as a cycle made up of four basic processes.

The LSI takes you through those processes to give you better understanding of how you learn. The Kolb Learning Style Inventory 4. Based on many years of research involving scholars around the world and data from many thousands of respondents, the KLSI 4.

Effective learning is seen when a person progresses through a cycle of four stages: of 1 having a concrete experience followed by 2 observation of and reflection on that experience which leads to 3 the formation of abstract concepts analysis and generalizations conclusions which are then 4 used to test a hypothesis in future situations, resulting in new experiences.

Kolb views learning as an integrated process with each stage being mutually supportive of and feeding into the next. It is possible to enter the cycle at any stage and follow it through its logical sequence. However, effective learning only occurs when a learner can execute all four stages of the model.

Therefore, no one stage of the cycle is effective as a learning procedure on its own. Kolb's learning theory sets out four distinct learning styles, which are based on a four-stage learning cycle see above. Kolb explains that different people naturally prefer a certain single different learning style. Various factors influence a person's preferred style.

For example, social environment, educational experiences, or the basic cognitive structure of the individual. Whatever influences the choice of style, the learning style preference itself is actually the product of two pairs of variables, or two separate 'choices' that we make, which Kolb presented as lines of an axis, each with 'conflicting' modes at either end.

A typical presentation of Kolb's two continuums is that the east-west axis is called the Processing Continuum how we approach a task , and the north-south axis is called the Perception Continuum our emotional response, or how we think or feel about it. Kolb believed that we cannot perform both variables on a single axis at the same time e. Our learning style is a product of these two choice decisions.

It's often easier to see the construction of Kolb's learning styles in terms of a two-by-two matrix. Each learning style represents a combination of two preferred styles. The matrix also highlights Kolb's terminology for the four learning styles; diverging, assimilating, and converging, accommodating:. Knowing a person's and your own learning style enables learning to be orientated according to the preferred method. That said, everyone responds to and needs the stimulus of all types of learning styles to one extent or another - it's a matter of using emphasis that fits best with the given situation and a person's learning style preferences.

These people are able to look at things from different perspectives. They are sensitive. They prefer to watch rather than do, tending to gather information and use imagination to solve problems. They are best at viewing concrete situations from several different viewpoints. Kolb called this style 'diverging' because these people perform better in situations that require ideas-generation, for example, brainstorming.

People with a diverging learning style have broad cultural interests and like to gather information. They are interested in people, tend to be imaginative and emotional, and tend to be strong in the arts. People with the diverging style prefer to work in groups, to listen with an open mind and to receive personal feedback.