Ask Dr. Diane – Today’s Question About: Online College Student’s Learning Style

I am happy to answer questions about online learning, understanding personalities, careers and job changing, personal finance, and more . . . To see the list of things I write about, see the categories to the right.

Today’s question: In an online-learning system, how do you identify visual and verbal learning styles, and then what is the right method to use. Maybe you can give me the information and recommendations about it. Thanks.

There are several instruments (tests) that can be taken to give you an idea of your preferred style of learning. You may have heard of VARK, Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT), or The Index of Learning Styles .

Although it is the most helpful to do so, you don’t necessarily have to take a formalized test to know which of the styles best fits you. A student can try several different methods of learning to see which of them provides the most benefit.

Some clues that you might be a visual learner would be if you like to:

Highlight or underline things to remember them
Prefer to re-write notes you have taken to better remember them
Find charts or graphs helpful
Find flashcards helpful

Some clues that you might be better with verbal learning would be if you like to:

Talk about what you have learned
Do well with audio books or like to record lectures
Read out loud to listen to questions asked and hear your answers given.
Like study groups

The following site offers a free learning assessment: http://www.learning-styles-online.com. This site could be a good starting place to give you a idea of what your style is and to suggest ideas of things you can do to help you learn based upon your preferred style.

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Thanks for the great question!

Learning Styles and Personality Tests

LEARNING STYLES AND PERSONALITY TESTS

Understanding personality preferences and learning styles has always interested me. My daughter, Toni Rothpletz, and I wrote about personality assessments in our book It’s Not You It’s Your Personality. However, in that book, we discussed more personality-related tests rather than learning style tests. In my book for online students, I do discuss styles of learning to some extent. Here are just a few of the learning style sites that you might find interesting to see where you fit with your learning preferences:

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING STYLES:

The site http://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/ offers a nice overview of their breakdown of learning styles including:

Visual (spatial). You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
Aural (auditory-musical). You prefer using sound and music.
Verbal (linguistic). You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.
Physical (kinesthetic). You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.
Logical (mathematical). You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.
Social (interpersonal). You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.
Solitary (intrapersonal). You prefer to work alone and use self-study.

VARK: (Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic)

I currently teach for several online universities where they administer different personality and learning style tests. One of those tests is the VARK questionnaire. The creators of VARK claim “This questionnaire is designed to tell you something about your preferences for the way you work with information.” This test is copyrighted. To receive information about it, you can email flemingn@ihug.co.nz. The results of this test suggest that you adjust your studying to be more like your style. These styles include:

Visual
Aural
Read/Write
Kinesthetic

KOLB’s Experiential Learning Theory ELT

Another important learning styles test is David Kolb’s KOLB Learning Style. Kolb also 4 styles or preferences. They base these preferences on a four-stage learning cycle. These four stages include:

Stage 1: Concrete Experience (CE)

Stage 2: Reflective Observation (RO)

Stage 3: Abstract Conceptualization (AC)

Stage 4: Active Experimentation (AE)

There are two levels to this model . . .after going through the above stages of experience, reflection, conceptualization and experimentation, there are four styles of learning that a person may prefer:

Diverging (CE/RO) – ability to see things from different perspectives – like brainstorming, interested in people and work well in groups.
Assimilating (AC/RO) – logical, like concepts – like clear explanations, do well in science-related careers.
Converging (AC/AE) – problem solvers – practical – like technical tasks, do well in technology-related careers.
Accommodating (CE/AE) – hands-on person, likes a good challenge – rely on gut instinct, do well in teams requiring action.

To find out more about KOLB learning styles click here.

To learn more about learning styles for the online student, check out The Online Student’s User Manual . To learn more about personality styles and understanding personality assessments check out It’s Not You It’s Your Personality.