Learning Style Assessments
If learning is fundamental to everything we do, then understanding one's unique learning style is fundamental to learning. Self-awareness of one's learning strengths and productivity preferences provides an illuminating perspective that may enrich one's personal and professional well-being.
Learning style assessments provide students with a self-reflective analysis of the ideal conditions in which they concentrate, work and learn paves the way for implementing strategies that:
- Improve learning attitudes and behaviors;
- Increase achievement;
- Improve performance;
- Strengthen communication;
- Enhance team interactions;
- Enhance self-motivation;
- Reduce anxiety and stress;
- Facilitate self-leadership skills; and
- Value diversity of thinking.
IRSC students are required to take the Building Excellence (BE) Learning Styles Assessment and then discuss their results with an advisor. The survey is located in the SLS 1101 Student Success course through the Blackboard shell.
The BE assessment is based on the original Dunn and Dunn Model, which identifies each individual’s strengths and preferences across the full spectrum of six categories. These six categories have been identified in determining how we learn:
- Environmental: sound, light, temperature, seating design
- Emotional: motivation, task persistence, conformity, structure
- Sociological: alone, pairs, small group, large group, authority, variety
- Perceptual: auditory, visual word, visual picture, tactual and/or kinesthetic, verbal
- Physiological: time of day, intake, mobility
- Psychological: analytic/global, impulsive/reflective
Once an individual's learning style strengths or preferences have been identified, the individual can begin to create the environment in which he or she will be most productive.
