Types of Learning Style Inventories and How to Use Them

When there is a need to determine what learning style students have, educational institutions often use learning style inventories. Usually, they look like lists of questions aimed to determine how students learn. Respondents should select answers that describe their preferences best. Writers-House.Com will tell you about popular types of learning style inventories.

How to Use a Learning Style Inventory

The whole idea of learning style inventories is that everyone has their particular learning preferences, as well as strong and weak sides. There are many theories that consider various learning styles and classify people into groups based on their styles. Many experts agree that effective education should be based on an individual approach, taking into account the learning styles of different people.

The history of such a theory goes back to the 1970s. Theories based on learning styles quickly became popular in the world of education. Since then, many teachers started to use learning style inventories to learn more about their students and to adjust their teaching methods to their students’ ways of learning.

An interesting fact is that there is no solid evidence that changing instructional methods depending on the preferences of students is more effective, however, this approach is still popular. Many teachers choose this method for its benefits. On the other hand, some experts claim that students who don’t study according to their particular style show the same results as those who are taught depending on their learning style.

There is also another fact to consider. Researchers found out that all the people indeed have different preferences when it comes to learning. The effectiveness of learning style inventories is determined by the fact that an individual approach allows students to be more involved in the learning process, developing their own learning habits.

Students can certainly benefit from knowing their learning styles and using this information to make their education more effective. For example, those who are better at visual learning can memorize more information if they use diagrams, graphs, and other images.

The Most Popular Inventories

• Fleming’s VARK Questionnaire
  The VARK Learning Style Questionnaire is focused on four main groups of people: auditory, writing/reading, visual, and kinesthetic. This questionnaire was created in 1987. Fleming decided to help people learn more about their styles of thinking and learning. This model has quickly become popular among both teachers and students.
• Kolb’s LSI
  LSI, which stands for Learning Style Inventory, is based on Kolb’s model of learning styles. This test is computerized and suggests how educators can improve their strategies, using the information on learning styles of their audience.
• Jackson’s LSP
  LSP stands for Learning Style Profiler. The basis of this system is Chris J. Jackson’s model, which considers learning styles in relation to different factors, such as biology, choice, and experience. This system is especially good when there’s a need to provide learning at work. There are many companies that use this method for its effectiveness.

Online Quizzes

You can find various learning style inventories on the internet. These quizzes are a good way to understand what type of learning is better for you. On the other hand, you shouldn’t forget that methods based on learning styles haven’t been studied enough to be sure they are indeed more effective than other methods.

Anyway, online tests can help you learn more about yourself. Just don’t take the results too seriously: Even if you like images more than plain text, it doesn’t mean that you cannot effectively use both.