Assessing experiential learning styles: A methodological reconstruction and validation of the Kolb Learning Style Inventory

a r t i c l e i n f o To understand experiential learning, many have reiterated the need to be able to identify students' learning styles. Kolb's Learning Style Model is the most widely accepted learning style model and has received a substantial amount of empirical support. Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (LSI), although one of the most widely utilized instruments to measure individual learning styles, possesses serious weaknesses. This study transforms the LSI from a type (categorical measure) to a degree (continuous measure) style of learning style measure that is not only more parsimonious but is also easier to use than the existing LSI. Two separate studies using samples of engineering and computer science graduate students (Study 1) and undergraduate and graduate students pursuing quantitative degrees (Study 2) culminating in a corroborative multi-sample validation were employed, producing a methodologically sound option to the existing LSI. Implications for future research and guidance for learning and teaching methods are discussed. Some suggest that the nature of education is in the midst of a transformation (e.g., Kolb & Kolb, 2006). Education has traditionally been viewed as the means to convey information — students were viewed as identical empty vessels to fill with information (Freire, 1998). Is such an approach to education able to produce knowledge? Several suggest that the use of the traditional pedagogical method of lecture may add relatively little to students' knowledge since it does not acknowledge individual differences and since it ignores the role of experience in knowledge formation (e.g., Bringle & Hatcher, 2003). Furthermore, reliance on lecture may be turning students into passive underachievers (Guyton, 2000) — students who may possess many facts, but are unable to apply such information to real-world issues (Bransford & Nye, 1989). A move to an experiential-ly based education explicitly acknowledging different learning styles (what has been called transformational learning (Pedrosa de Jesus, Almeida, Teixeira-Dias, & Watts, 2006)) has been forwarded as a more effective alternative to traditional pedagogy (e. identified 71 learning style models. The most influential learning style model is Kolb's model (Kayes, 2005). An appeal of Kolb's Experiential Learning Model is its focus on the experiential learning process rather than on fixed learning traits (Turesky & Gallagher, 2011), providing for an acknowledgement and incorporation of personal change and development in the model (Healey & Jenkins, 2000). Furthermore, the model lends itself to a number of theoretical perspectives, including cognitivism, …