Subject: Re: learning styles v. personality types?
From: Clark Quinn (cnquinn@knowledgeu.com)
Date: Sun 28 Nov 1999 - 07:08:49 MET
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 22:08:49 -0800 Subject: Re: learning styles v. personality types? From: "Clark Quinn" <cnquinn@knowledgeu.com>
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> In looking at learning styles, I go back to the Aptitude Treatment
> Interaction research, specifically that conducted by Dr. David Berliner.
> Berliner visited our campus about five years ago, and I asked him about his
> research with ATI, he replied that he had dropped that line of research
> because it had failed to provide consistent findings. I assume that
> "learning styles" research is similar to ATI research, there are no
> consistent findings.
David Snow (of Cronbach and Snow, the two major researchers of ATI research)
finally concluded that ATI research was a 'lost cause' (to grossly
oversimplify things).
> From the epistemological point of view, I recall that Carl Jung was the
> first psychologist to use "typing" of personalities, such as introverts and
> extroverts, with many variations (see the Modern Library's Portable Carl
> Jung) at the early stages of this fast waning century. I am wondering if
> that concept is also inconsistent and inconclusive.
Certainly the 'Myers-Briggs' is alive and well, and based on Jungian
psychology. Not that I put great credence in it. I believe (as an
interested amateur, not a trained professional), that personality psychology
has instead tended to find other, more robust, personality metrics and map
the MBTI into them.
John Carroll has argued for cognitive measures and has thoroughly used
factor-analysis to find independent metrics of brain function.
> However, there do seem
> to be constructs in psychology that might be relatively permanent, such as
> introvert and extrovert. The question is: can such constructs be identified
> in learning? Can anyone out there suggest relatively permanent constructs
> related to learning styles? I am not looking for shifting sands or tea
> leaves! For example, I don't think that Multiple Intelligence theory is
> standing to the test of time.
Patrick Kyllonen and Valerie Shute were working in that direction. They
have a 1989 paper (I'm at home and don't have the reference to hand) where
they make a proposal for constructs. Valerie has argued in a separate paper
that there are reasons to believe that methodological problems marred the
ATI work, and that computer-mediated systems might have better ability to
evaluate the issue.
On the other hand, there's little doubt that prior knowledge is likely to be
the primary contributor to variance (e.g Sig Tobias, among others), and
styles would be a secondary issue.
-- Clark
-- Clark Quinn cnquinn@knowledgeu.com--------------------------------------------------------- Forum website: http://ifets.ieee.org/ Forum's contact person: kinshuk@massey.ac.nz Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.ieee.org/maillist.html ---------------------------------------------------------
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