The relationship between psychological type and the learning style preferences of graduate psychology students: Implications for trainin

Recent studies have utilized learning style instruments with adults to improve educational and training practices in a variety of fields and settings. Knowledge of learning styles provides educators with an opportunity to individualize education by identifying students' styles and systematically prescribing programs which are complementary to their learning needs. For many years, psychologists have advocated for more individualized approaches to the training of graduate psychology students, however, few studies pertaining to learning style have been done with this population. This study utilized three instruments, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Learning Preference Inventory (LPI), and an Instructional Preference Survey (IPS), to explore the learning style characteristics of graduate psychology students and to determine whether psychological type could predict students' preferences for instructional methods and social interaction conditions in the educational setting.;Subjects for the study were 51 doctoral students from a graduate school of professional psychology located in a major metropolitan area of the Northeast United States. Pearson product-moment correlations were conducted to determine the strength of the relationships between the MBTI and the two learning style measures. The results indicated that MBTI psychological type could partially predict students' preferences for instructional methods and social interaction conditions in the learning environment. Sensing types of students significantly preferred Teacher-structured conditions, while Intuitive types preferred Student-structured conditions. There was a trend indicating that Extraverted students may prefer Interpersonal learning conditions, while Introverted students may prefer Individual learning conditions. Several other differences in learning style were observed between Extraverts and Introverts, Sensing and Intuitive types, and Judging and Perceiving types of students. Implications for graduate psychology education are discussed and recommendations for future research are suggested.