For my Social Justice module I was asked to complete the Honey and Mumford learning style questionnaire to identify and build on areas of development as a professional for collaborative working.  The questionnaire was developed based on the work of Kolb, corresponding with the experiential learning cycle he suggests – experiencing, reflecting, generalising and application – and involved answering eighty questions to result in a particular learning style.  There is a maximum score of twenty indicating learning styles and my results are the following:

Activist                 16

Reflector             10

Theorist               9

Pragmatist          15

Activists like to act quickly, get involved and get things done.  Reflectors look at situations from various perspectives and are more concerned with processes than outcomes.  Theorists are known for their thoroughness, solving problems and working alone. Pragmatist’s strengths are getting things done, preferring a more hands on experience with practical application of what they learn.

I can relate to these results based on the types of questions asked however I know that I adopt all four of the learning styles in a different environment or circumstance on a regular basis without conscious thought.  In a previous blog post I discussed the VARK learning styles which gave very different results and Richard Holme pointed me in the direction of this article suggesting that there is no empirical evidence to suggest instruction based on learning styles are effective. The results from the two said learning style surveys actually contradict themselves.  The VARK suggests I am predominantly a read/write learner however Honey and Mumford learning style questionnaire suggests I am more of an activist.  Theorists are described in the Honey and Mumford questionnaire as enjoying being taught in a didactic way which would agree with the read/write method of VARK however this was my lowest score in this questionnaire.

So are learning style questionnaires reliable? I do understand that the point of doing the Honey and Mumford questionnaire in relation to my module was to apply a method to explain and reflect my thinking. I believe that I know what my strengths and weaknesses without doing such learning style surveys. Tasks assigned for us to do such as the Online Unit and thorough reading and reflection of The Study Skills book will help identify how to strengthen my underdeveloped skills to become a more rounded and effective learner.  I appreciate in my profession as an educator, understanding learning styles is important however as previously mentioned there is no absolute way to learn and basing teaching on style-based instruction for a whole class in not practical and some subjects are best taught in a collective way.  Learning is an individual processes however knowing how you process it can help maximise skills that fit your strengths.