Learning Styles

Learning is a complex neurological experience. As yet, we cannot detect why or how learning occurs or to what it can be attributed^[1]but underlying, are theoretical concepts such as:

• Behaviour: an earlier school of thought, based on the way we react and learn from circumstances when motivated
• Structuralist: where learners are presented with an end goal and allowed to determine what has been achieved through thinking processes
• Cognitive: recognising that people have unique thought and mental processes that affect their learning; attention, memory, language, reasoning and problem solving are key to determining the learning environment conducive to individual learning traits.^[2]

Origin The notion that people think, feel and experience the world in different ways through four functions of the mind (thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition) was pioneered by the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung.^[3]His ideology became integrated into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test, which emerged in the 1940s as a measure of cognitive style or "thinking style”. Its continued success has prompted the development of the contemporary interest in learning-style assessments.

Diagnosing Individual Learning Styles Those that champion learning style assessments claim that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individual’s learning styles and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what kind of delivery of information they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures versus speech) and what kind of mental activity they find the most engaging (e.g., analysis versus listening) although tools for assessing are diverse.

Development of the Learning Styles Model