Learning Styles: A Tool for Faculty Development

Grasha and Reichmann (1975) developed a questionnaire to assess student learning style. This instrument allows the student to identify preferred styles described as Independent, Dependent, Avoidant, Competitive, Collaborative and Participant. This material has been used in various faculty development programs. Kolb (1976, 1977) developed a self-report instrument, The Learning Style Inventory, to measure perceived learning styles. The instrument uses as its basis the experiential learning model with its origin in the work of Jung (1923) and Lewin (1945). The Learning Style Inventory has been used to assess individual preference for the four identified learning abilities as shown in Figure 1. Concrete experiences (CE), reflective observation on these experiences (RO), abstract conceptualization of these experiences (AC), and testing these concepts in new situations (AE). This learning cycle involves the use of all four of the styles, but research has shown that individuals have tendencies to prefer one or more of the dimensions