AN INVESTIGATION OF A LEARNING STYLE INVENTORY WITH SELECTED EDUCATIONAL GROUPS

Examination of certain processes of learning reveals numerous characteristics of students, teachers, and schools which influence instruction and outcomes of education.;The sample consisted of 262 graduate and undergraduate students at Illinois State University in three subgroups: (1) 100 inservice elementary teachers, (2) 112 preservice elementary teachers, and (3) 50 undergraduate university students majoring in fields other than professional education who voluntarily responded to a three-part instrument. The parts of this instrument were the Learning Style Inventory (LSI) developed by Kolb, the Interpersonal Topical Inventory developed by Tuckman, and a demographic questionnaire developed by the researcher.;The Learning Style Inventory was designed to classify individuals into learning style categories based on expressed learning ability mode strengths within the Experimental Learning Model. The LSI is a nine-item, self-description instrument. Each item required respondents to rank-order four words in a manner which best described their learning styles. Two combined scores of LSI, the abstract-concrete score and the active-reflective score, indicated an individual's classification into one of four learning style categories.;Statistical techniques employed in this study included Cross-breaks with chi-squares, Correlations, Analyses of Variance, and Factor Analysis. The level of statistical significance accepted was the .01 probability level.;This study investigated relationships between learning styles, personal characteristics, and environmental considerations of different groups of individuals, and sought evidence concerning the validity and reliability of a learning style inventory.;Two major conclusions were apparent. First, this investigation revealed relationships between learning styles and personal characteristics associated with an individual's current or anticipated career. Further, the Learning Style Inventory proved to be a useful instrument for assessing the degree of abstractness of individuals and for use in determining their learning styles. This study demonstrated that learning style classifications based on responses to the Learning Style Inventory are consistent with the Experiential Learning Model.