[PDF]THE KOLB LEARNING STYLE INVENTORY

Active Experimentation


THE KOLB LEARNING STYLE INVENTORY

4.0


A Comprehensive Guide to the Theory, Psychometrics,
Research on Validity and Educational Applications


Concrete Experience




Alice Y. Kolb
David A. Kolb

Experience Based
Learning Systems














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THE KOLB LEARNING STYLE INVENTORY- Version 4.0

A Comprehensive Guide to the Theory, Psychometrics,
Research on Validity and Educational Applications

Alice Y. Kolb & David A. Kolb
Experience Based Learning Systems, Inc.


Abstract

The Kolb Learning Style Inventory version 4.0 (KLSI 4.0) revised in 2011, is the
latest revision of the original Learning Style Inventory developed by David A. Kolb. Like its
predecessors, the KLSI 4.0 is based on experiential learning theory (Kolb 1984) and is
designed to help individuals identify the way they learn from experience. The Kolb Learning
Style Inventory 4.0 is the first major revision of the KLSI since 1999 and the third since the
original LSI was published in 1971. Based on many years of research involving scholars
around the world and data from many thousands of respondents, the KLSI 4.0 includes four
major additions— A new nine learning style typology, assessment of learning flexibility, an
expanded personal report focused on improving learning effectiveness, and improved
psychometrics. The technical specifications are designed to adhere to the standards for
educational and psychological testing developed by the American Educational Research
Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on
Measurement in Education (1999).

The first chapter describes the conceptual foundations of the LSI in the theory
of experiential learning (ELT). Chapter 2 provides a description of the inventory that
includes its purpose, history, and format. Chapter 3 describes the characteristics of the KLSI
4.0 normative sample. Chapter 4 includes internal reliability and test-retest reliability studies
of the inventory. Chapter 5 provides information about research on the internal and external
validity for the instrument. Internal validity studies of the structure of the KLSI 4.0. using
correlation and factor analysis are reported. External validity includes research on
demographics, educational specialization, concurrent validity with other experiential learning
assessment instruments, aptitude test performance, academic performance and experiential
learning in teams. Chapter 6 describes the new Learning Flexibility Index including scoring
formulas, normative data and validity evidence. In chapter 7 the current research on
educational applications of ELT and the KLSI in many fields is reviewed.

©Experience Based Learning Systems 2013 www.leamingfromexperience.com



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Table of Contents

1. EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING THEORY AND INDIVIDUAL LEARNING STYLES 6

THE CYCLE OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING.7

LEARNING STYLE.9

LEARNING SPACE.17

THE SPIRAL OF LEARNING AND ADULT DEVELOPMENT.24

LEARNING FLEXIBILITY.27

DELIBERATE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING.28

EDUCATOR ROLES—TEACHING AROUND THE LEARNING CYCLE...35

2. THE KOLB LEARNING STYLE NVENTORY.39

PURPOSE.39

HISTORY.40

FORMAT.42

3. NORMS FOR THE KLSI VERSION 4.0.48

4. RELIABILITY OF THE KLSI 4.0.51

INTERNAL CONSISTENCY RELIABILITY.51

TEST-RETEST RELIABILITY.51

5. VALIDITY OF THE KLSI 4.0.53

INTERNAL VALIDITY EVIDENCE

Correlation of KLSI 4.0 with KLSI 3.1.53

Correlation Studies of the LSI Scales.54

Factor Analysis Studies.55

EXTERNAL VALIDITY EVIDENCE.57

Age.57

Gender.58

Educational Level.58

Educational Specialization.59

Culture.62

Other Experiential Learning Assessment Instruments.65

Multiple Intelligences.68

Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire.68

Aptitude Test Performance.69

Assessment of Academic Performance.98

Experiential Learning in Teams.71

Team member learning style.

Team norms.

































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6. LEARNING FLEXIBILITY.76

7. EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING THEORY RESEARCH BY DISCIPLINE.91


Accounting

Agriculture

Anatomy

Arts Education

Business and Management

Biology

Computer and Information Science

Dentistry

Economics

Education

Engineering

Entrepreneurship

Geography

History

Law

Marketing

Mathematics

Medicine

Nursing

Pharmacy

Physical Education

Physics

Physiology

Political Science

Psychiatry

Psychology

Science

Social Work

Theatre

Urban Planning


REFERENCES.141

APPENDIX 1. KLSI 4.0 Raw Score to Percentile Conversion.171


APPENDIX 2. Learning Style and Age


178








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APPENDIX 3. Learning Style and Gender.179

APPENDIX 4. Learning Style and Educational Level.180

APPENDIX 5. Learning Style and Educational Specialization.182

APPENDIX 6. Learning Style Type and Educational Specialization.185

APPENDIX 7. Learning Flexibility Index Percentiles.187

APPENDIX 8. LFI Item Scores for the Regions of the Learning Space.191

APPENDIX 9. KLSI 4.0 Learning Style Type Descriptions and Case Studies.192

APPENDIX 10. Experiential Learning Session Designs.212

APPENDIX 11. Evaluating Learning: The Personal Application Assignment.222












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1. EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING THEORY AND INDIVIDUAL LEARNING STYLES


The Kolb Learning Style Inventory differs from other tests of learning style and
personality used in education by being based on a comprehensive theory of learning and
development. Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) draws on the work of prominent 20 th
century scholars who gave experience a central role in their theories of human learning and
development—notably John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, William
James, Carl Jung, Paulo Freire, Carl Rogers and Mary Parker Follett—to develop a holistic
model of the experiential learning process and a multi-dimensional model of adult
development (Figure 1.)

Figure 1.


Foundational Scholars of
Experiential Learning


0 William James

Radical Empiricism

Kurt Lewin

• Action Research
• The T-Group




Carl Rogers

• Self-actualization through
the Process of Experiencing



John Dewey

• Experiential Education


M

Jean Piaget

• Constructivism


Lev Vygotsky

• Proximal Zone of

1 Development


£f!i

Paulo Freire


• Naming Experience in

w ■

Dialogue



Carl Jung

• Development from
Specialization to Integration



Mary Parker Follett

• Learning in Relationship
• Creative Experience


The theory, described in detail in Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of
Learning and Development (Kolb 1984), is built on six propositions that are shared by these
scholars.

1. Learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes. Although
punctuated by knowledge milestones, learning does not end at an outcome, nor is
it always evidenced in performance. Rather, learning occurs through the course of
connected experiences in which knowledge is modified and re-formed. To
improve learning in higher education, the primary focus should be on engaging
students in a process that best enhances their learning - a process that includes
feedback on the effectiveness of their learning efforts. “.. .education must be
conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experience: ... the process and goal
of education are one and the same thing.” (Dewey 1897: 79)



















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2. All learning is re-learning. Learning is best facilitated by a process that draws
out the students’ beliefs and ideas about a topic so that they can be examined,
tested and integrated with new, more refined ideas. Piaget called this proposition
constructivism—individuals construct their knowledge of the world based on
their experience and learn from experiences that lead them to realize how new
information conflicts with their prior experience and belief.

3. Learning requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes
of adaptation to the world. Conflict, differences, and disagreement are what drive
the learning process. These tensions are resolved in iterations of movement back
and forth between opposing modes of reflection and action and feeling and
thinking.

4. Learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world. Learning is not just the
result of cognition but involves the integrated functioning of the total person—
thinking, feeling, perceiving and behaving. It encompasses other specialized
models of adaptation from the scientific method to problem solving, decision
making and creativity.

5. Learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the
environment. In Piaget’s terms, learning occurs through equilibration of the
dialectic processes of assimilating new experiences into existing concepts and
accommodating existing concepts to new experience. Following Lewin’s famous
formula that behavior is a function of the person and the environment, ELT holds
that learning is influenced by characteristics of the learner and the learning space.

6. Learning is the process of creating knowledge. In ELT, knowledge is viewed as
the transaction between two forms of knowledge: social knowledge, which is co¬
constructed in a socio-historical context, and personal knowledge, the subjective
experience of the learner. This conceptualization of knowledge stands in contrast
to that of the “transmission” model of education in which pre-existing, fixed ideas
are transmitted to the learner. ELT proposes a constructivist theory of learning
whereby social knowledge is created and recreated in the personal knowledge of
the learner.


THE CYCLE OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

ELT is a dynamic view of learning based on a learning cycle driven by the resolution
of the dual dialectics of action/reflection and experience/abstraction. Learning is defined as
“the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.
Knowledge results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience.” (Kolb,
1984, p. 41). Grasping experience refers to the process of taking in information, and
transforming experience is how individuals interpret and act on that information. The ELT
model portrays two dialectically related modes of grasping experience—Concrete
Experience (CE) and Abstract Conceptualization (AC)—and two dialectically related modes
of transforming experience—Reflective Observation (RO) and Active Experimentation (AE).



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Learning arises from the resolution of creative tension among these four learning modes.
This process is portrayed as an idealized learning cycle or spiral where the learner “touches
all the bases”—experiencing (CE), reflecting (RO), thinking (AC), and acting (AE)—in a
recursive process that is sensitive to the learning situation and what is being learned.
Immediate or concrete experiences are the basis for observations and reflections. These
reflections are assimilated and distilled into abstract concepts from which new implications
for action can be drawn. These implications can be actively tested and serve as guides in
creating new experiences (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The Experiential Learning Cycle



In The art of changing the brain: Enriching teaching by exploring the biology of
learning, James Zull a biologist and founding director of CWRU’s University Center for
Innovation in Teaching and Education (UCITE) sees a link between ELT and neuroscience
research, suggesting that this process of experiential learning is related to the process of
brain functioning as shown in Figure 2. “Put into words, the figure illustrates that concrete
experiences come through the sensory cortex, reflective observation involves the integrative
cortex at the back, creating new abstract concepts occurs in the frontal integrative cortex, and
active testing involves the motor brain. In other words, the learning cycle arises from the
structure of the brain.” (Zull 2002: 18-19; 2011)










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Figure 3. The Experiential Learning Cycle and Regions of the Cerebral Cortex.


Active



Reprinted with permission of the author (Zull 2002) Learning style
describes the unique ways individuals spiral through the learning cycle based on their
preference for the four different learning modes—CE, RO, AC, & AE. Because of one’s
genetic makeup, particular life experiences, and the demands of the present environment, a
preferred way of choosing among these four learning modes is developed. The conflict
between being concrete or abstract and between being active or reflective is resolved in
patterned, characteristic ways. Much of the research on ELT has focused on the concept of
learning style using the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (KLSI) to assess individual learning
styles (Kolb & Kolb 2005b). In the KLSI a person’s learning style is defined by their unique
combination of preferences for the four learning modes defining a “kite” shape profile of
their relative preference for the four phases of the learning cycle. Because each person's
learning style is unique, everyone's kite shape is a little different.

ELT posits that learning style is not a fixed psychological trait but a dynamic state
resulting from synergistic transactions between the person and the environment. This
dynamic state arises from an individual’s preferential resolution of the dual dialectics of
experiencing/conceptualizing and acting/reflecting. “The stability and endurance of these
states in individuals comes not solely from fixed genetic qualities or characteristics of human
beings: nor, for that matter, does it come from the stable fixed demands of environmental
circumstances. Rather, stable and enduring patterns of human individuality arise from
consistent patterns of transaction between the individual and his or her environment.. .The
way we process the possibilities of each new emerging event determines the range of choices
and decisions we see. The choices and decisions we make to some extent determine the
events we live through, and these events influence our future choices. Thus, people create
themselves through the choice of the actual occasions that they live through” (Kolb, 1984, p.
63-64).


Previous research with KLSI versions 1-3.1 has identified four learning style
groupings of similar kite shapes that are associated with different approaches to learning



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Diverging, Assimilating, Converging, and Accommodating. This research has shown that
learning styles are influenced by culture, personality type, educational specialization, career
choice, and current job role and tasks (Kolb & Kolb, 2013; Kolb, 1984). These patterns of
behavior associated with the four basic learning styles are shaped by transactions between
persons and their environment at five different levels—personality, educational
specialization, professional career, current job role, and adaptive competencies. While some
have interpreted learning style as a personality variable (Garner 2000, Furnam, Jackson &
Miller 1999), ELT defines learning style as a social psychological concept that is only
partially determined by personality. Personality exerts a small but pervasive influence in
nearly all situations; but at the other levels learning style is influenced by increasingly
specific environmental demands of educational specialization, career, job, and tasks skills.
Table 1 summarizes previous research that has identified how learning styles are determined
at these various levels.


LEARNING STYLE


Table 1

Relationship Between Learning Styles and Five Levels of Behavior.


Behavior level

Diverging

Assimilating

Converging

Acc ommodating

Personality

Introverted

Introverted

Extraverted

Extraverted

types

Feeling

Intuition

Thinking

Sensation

Educational

Arts, English

Mathematics

Engineering

Education

specialization

History

Psychology

Physical

Science

Medicine

Communication

Nursing

Professional

Social service

Sciences

Engineering

Sales

career

Arts

Research

Information

Medicine

Technology

Social service
Education

Current jobs

Personal

jobs

Information

jobs

Technical

jobs

Executive

jobs

Adaptive

Valuing

Thinking

Decision

Action

competencies

skills

skills

skills

skills



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Personality Types.

Although the learning styles of and learning modes proposed by ELT are derived
from the works of Dewey, Lewin and Piaget many have noted the similarity of these
concepts to Carl Jung’s descriptions of individuals’ preferred ways for adapting in the
world. Several research studies relating the LSI with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI) indicate that Jung’s Extraversion/Introversion dialectical dimension correlates
with the Active/Reflective dialectic of ELT and the MBTI Feeling/Thinking dimension
correlates with the LSI Concrete Experience/ Abstract Conceptualization dimension. The
MBTI Sensing type is associated with the LSI Accommodating learning style and the
MBTI Intuitive type with the LSI Assimilating style. MBTI Feeling types correspond to
LSI Diverging learning styles and Thinking types to Converging styles. The above
discussion implies that the Accommodating learning style is the Extraverted Sensing
type, and the Converging style the Extraverted Thinking type. The Assimilating learning
style corresponds to the Introverted Intuitive personality type and the Diverging style to
the Introverted Feeling type. Myers (1962) descriptions of these MBTI types are very
similar to the corresponding LSI learning styles as described by ELT (Kolb, 1984, pp:
83-85).

Educational Specialization.

Early educational experiences shape people’s individual learning styles by instilling
positive attitudes toward specific sets of learning skills and by teaching students how to
learn. Although elementary education is generalized, there is an increasing process of
specialization that begins in high school and becomes sharper during the college years.
This specialization in the realms of social knowledge influences individuals’ orientations
toward learning, resulting in particular relations between learning styles and early
training in an educational specialty or discipline. For example, people specializing in the
arts, history, political science, English, and psychology tend to have Diverging learning
styles, while those majoring in more abstract and applied areas like medicine and
engineering have Converging learning styles. Individuals with Accommodating styles
often have educational backgrounds in education, communication and nursing, and those
with Assimilating styles in mathematics and physical sciences.

Professional Career.

A third set of factors that shape learning styles stems from professional careers.

One’s professional career choice not only exposes one to a specialized learning
environment, but it also involves a commitment to a generic professional problem, such
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