Overview

A useful approach for understanding and describing different learning styles, or models, is to classify them
into different groups based on what the model measures or describes. Psychologists have come up with
nearly as many classifications of these styles as the number of styles themselves. Here are descriptions
of several well-known classifications:

Sensory Which of your senses do you learn best with in different situations? Do you learn better
by hearing a lecture, seeing diagrams drawn on the board, doing a lab, or writing notes? Or, do you
learn best using a combination of these factors?
Perceptual - Are you more right brained or left brained? The cerebral cortex is the part of the brain
that houses rational functions and is divided into two hemispheres which sends messages back and
forth between the hemispheres. The left side of the brain is the seat of language and processes in a
logical and sequential order. The right side is more visual and processes intuitively, holistically, and
randomly. Most people seem to have a dominant side.
Cognitive The way a person perceives, remembers, thinks, and solves problems. How do you
process experiences and knowledge? Do you learn sequentially or randomly?
Personality - Some people are very outgoing and fun-oriented, while others are more quiet and
introspective; some people are highly analytical in decision making, while others use their feelings for
deciding; some people feel more comfortable living a planned, orderly life, while others prefer to live
spontaneously. Though the number of observed traits appears limited, the subtle and unique
interaction between these traits leads to the conclusion that every individual is gifted with a truly
unique personality.
Information Processing Model Every person has a different process by which information is
obtained, sorted, stored, & utilized.
Affective This includes personality and emotional characteristics related to areas such as
persistence, responsibility, motivation, and peer interaction. Do you prefer working by yourself or with
peers? Are you more competitive or cooperative?
Physiological This is biologically based and relates to sex differences, nutrition, and reaction to
physical environment. Does background music help you concentrate, or does it distract you?
Experiential This is primarily applied to higher education and addresses the manner in
which students choose to learn (deep vs. surface learning) and what motivates them to learn (to
receive an A or having a personal commitment to learning).

In this tutorial, the learning styles have been divided into three categories based on their common
descriptions and measurements:

1. Cognitive

Cognitive learning styles are the information processing habits of an individual. Unlike individual
differences in abilities, cognition describes a person's typical mode of thinking, perceiving, remembering,
or problem solving. Cognitive style is usually described as a personality dimension which influences
attitudes, values, and social interaction.

For example, ask yourself how you process experiences and knowledge and how you organize and retain
information. Do you need to visualize the task before starting? Do you approach learning and teaching
sequentially or randomly? Do you work quickly or deliberately? These are examples of cognitive learning
style characteristics.

The biological basis for cognitive learning styles is grounded in brain theory.

2. Personality
People are different in fundamental ways. But why do different people think, feel, desire, and act so
differently? Why is it that, confronted with the same situation, one person will laugh, another cry, and a
third get angry? Our past experiences strongly influence how we act today. But many psychologists
believe that certain basic behavior patterns are inborn. These inborn patterns, or psychological types,
influence the way we approach life and therefore govern our reactions to various learning situations.

Four basic psychological types were identified as far back as 450 B.C., but modern psychologists have
divided each of these into four more "subtypes" to create 16 different types of people. Each type shares
similar psychological themes and values with other types--thus people of very different types can end up
in the same careers or lifestyles.
One important fact must be stressed, however, and that is that no one personality type is better or worse
than any other. Each type occurs at a different frequency in the general population; some types are
therefore more common. Each psychological type has its own learning style, and knowing your style can
not only help you learn faster, but can also help you to clarify your interests and motivating values.
Each of the personality theories has a different approach to learning and is consequently motivated by
different factors.

3. Experiential

Most educational psychologists acknowledge that experience is an important part of learning. In the last
half of the 1900s, cognitive and humanistic research pointed more and more towards the importance of
experience, especially applied to the way that older students (high school and college) learn.
Saljo (1979) found that the more life experience a student has, the more likely they are to view learning as
an internal, experienced based process rather than as an external process.

The theory of experiential learning did not gain prominence until the work of Mezirow, Freire, Kolb and
Gregorc in the 1980's. In the early 1980's, they stressed that the heart of all learning lies in the way we
process experience, in particular, our critical reflection of experience. They spoke of learning as a cycle
that begins with experience, continues with reflection and later leads to action, which itself becomes a
concrete experience for reflection.

Experiential learning is used to describe the sort of learning undertaken by students who are given a
chance to acquire and apply knowledge, skills, and feelings in an immediate and relevant
setting. Another type of experiential learning is education that occurs as a direct participation in the
events of life. Here learning is not sponsored by some formal educational institution but by people
themselves. It is learning that is achieved through reflection upon everyday experience and is the way
that most of us do our learning.