Learning Styles

What kind of learner are you? North Carolina State University has a test you can take to find out how you learn best.

Just follow the link, take the test, and then print out the results.

Felder and Soloman, researchers for NCSU look at four areas of learners in their report of Learning Styles and Strategies. Listed below is a breakdown of the areas.

Active and Reflective Learners

Active learners tend to retain and understand information best by doing something active with it--discussing or applying it or explaining it to others.

Reflective learners prefer to think about it quietly first.

Sensing and Intuitive Learners

Sensing learners tend to like learning facts, intuitive learners often prefer discovering possibilities and relationships. Sensors often like solving problems by well-established methods and dislike surprises.

Intuitors may be better at grasping new concepts. Intuitors tend to work faster and to be more innovative.

Visual and Verbal Learners

Visual learners remember best what they see--pictures, diagrams, flow charts, time lines, films, and demonstrations.

Verbal learners get more out of words--written and spoken explanations.

Sequential and Global Learners

Sequential learners tend to gain understanding in steps, with each step following logically from the previous one.

Global learners tend to learn in large jumps. Global learners may be able to solve complex problems quickly or put things together once they have grasped the big picture.

My Results

The chart below shows the results from my test. As you can see, I am strongly an intuitive, global learner, with a tilt towards visual learning. Basically, this means I tend to work quickly, always looking for new ideas, and need to see the whole concept. I need to picture an idea to understand it.



What is your learning style? What does this tell you about how you learn best?