3.3.5. Learning Styles

3.3.5.1. Introduction

Despite some confusion (in theory and in practice) on the difference between learning styles and learning strategies (Reid 1995:viii) consideration of learning styles does indeed have a place in a review of affect in the classroom, originating as they do from habitual (in addition to biological) attributes, and thus being susceptible to modification and extension (Davidman 1981). Learning strategies are:

... external skills that students use, often consciously, to improve their learning ... that students can be taught [and] that can enhance or expand their existing learning styles. Learning styles, in contrast, are internally based characteristics, often not perceived or used consciously, that are the basis for the intake and understanding of new information ... students can identify their preferred learning styles and stretch those styles by examining and practising various learning strategies. (Reid 1995:viii)

Research suggests that learning ("the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience", Kolb 1984:38) is affected by learning styles, and that in the case of students who are able to employ multiple learning styles, this effect is positive (Cronbach & Snow 1977; Stewart 1981; Claxton & Murrell 1987:54; Eliason 1995:27). Reid (1995:xiii) hypothesises a number of propositions for learning styles:

1. every person, students and teacher alike, has a learning style and learning strengths and weaknesses;
2. learning styles exist on wide continuums, although they are often described as opposites;
3. learning styles are value-neutral; that is, no one style is better than others;
4. students must be encouraged to ‘stretch' their learning styles so that they will be more empowered in a variety of learning situations;
5. students' learning strategies are often linked to their learning styles;
6. teachers should allow their students to become aware of their learning strengths and weaknesses. (Reid 1995:xiii)

Nelson (1995:6), Reid (1987:88) and Singleton (1991) also point out that learning styles are often culturally determined, acting "as a kind of unintentional hidden curriculum" (Singleton 1991:120), with obvious implications for curriculum design, materials development, student orientation, and teacher training. In Korea (the focus of this study), cultural influences on learning styles stem from the strong Confucian cultural tradition, which places a high value on education and which controls societal interactions, as described in the Confucian Classic, the Mencius:

... between father and son there should be affection, between ruler and minister there should be righteousness, between husband and wife there should be proper distinction, between elder and younger there should be proper order, and between friends there should be faithfulness. (Kalton 1991:3-4)

According to common interpretations of these guidelines, the teacher must be an all-knowing authority figure, and students must humbly and passively accept the teacher's learning. It is interesting to note however, that the four Confucian principles determining "proper" human behaviour (humanism, faithfulness, propriety, and wisdom) are similar to contemporary educational principles such as those advocated in this study, and that it is the way those principles have been interpreted that has produced the current learning environment in Korea (section 2.3.3.1).

3.3.5.2. Definitions

While differing on the relative amount of emphasis, most definitions agree on the importance of cognition, affect and personality in learning styles, as in Reid's (1995:viii) definition of "an individual's natural, habitual, and preferred way(s) of absorbing, processing, and retaining new information and skills." Keefe (1979:4) identifies "cognitive, affective and physiological traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment", Scarcella (1990:114) talks of "cognitive and interactional patterns which affect the ways in which students perceive, remember, and think", and Ehrman & Oxford (1990:311) describe "preferred or habitual patterns of mental functioning and dealing with new information". Reid (1995:ix) summarises these ideas, proposing three major learning styles (cognitive, sensory, personality):

1. Cognitive Learning Styles: Field-Independent/Dependent Learning Styles (FI/D); Analytic/Global Learning Styles; Reflective/Impulsive Learning Styles.
2. Sensory Styles: Perceptual Learning Styles (Auditory Learners, Visual Learners, Tactile Learners, Kinaesthetic Learners and Haptic Learners); Environmental Learning Styles (Physical Learners, Sociological Learners).
3. Personality Learning Styles (Affective/Temperament Styles): Myers-Briggs Temperament Styles (Extroversion/Introversion, Sensing/Perception, Thinking/ Feeling, Judging/Perceiving); Tolerance of Ambiguity Styles (Tolerant Learners/ Intolerant Learners); Right-and Left-Hemisphere Learners.

Tolerance of ambiguity (i.e. willingness to adapt to apparently ambiguous situations or ideas - cf. Ausburn & Ausburn [1978]) can be an important factor in learning styles, often interacting with the perceived locus of control, with potentially demoralising results. In addition to the acknowledged stressful nature of the language classroom (Horwitz et. al. 1986), perceived ambiguity (e.g. multiple interpretation situations, situations difficult to categorise; and situations including contradictions, cf. Krietler et al. [1975]) can be a further reason for ceasing language study, especially in the case of "Intolerant Learners", who typically lack the flexibility and the willingness "... to perceive ambiguous situations as desirable" (Budner 1962:29). Tolerant individuals are more likely to be risk takers and persistent processors, and can be expected to perform well when faced with a learning situation containing novelty, complexity, contradiction and/or lack of structure (MacDonald 1970). Individual differences related to ambiguity tolerance include intelligence (Budner 1978), cognitive complexity (Peters & Amburgey 1982), anxiety (less tolerant individuals tend to be more anxious [Keenan 1978]), dogmatism (low dogmatic persons have greater tolerance for ambiguity [Goldsmith 1984]), and self-esteem (Goldsmith 1984). Another type of tolerance in learning is "Frustration Tolerance", which refers to the effect on performance of external frustrations (e.g. disagreement with teaching methods, peer pressure, etc.), which typically become internalised and deprive the student of peace of mind (Rosenweig 1978), with inherent (de)motivational results (Reber 1985). Low tolerance for frustration is related to lack of self confidence (Scorzelli et al. 1976), being determined by external forces (Maier 1961), and is a factor of prior knowledge, extroversion/introversion, and anxiety.

3.3.5.3. History of Research

A comprehensive survey of research into learning styles can be found in Reid (1987), for which reason this review confines itself to a brief survey, with specific attention to results relating to language learning in Korea.

As with other aspects of affect and cognition in learning, investigation into learning styles is quite recent, early work focusing mostly on cognitive styles and on conscious learning strategies, "style" in the 1970s referring to "a quality [in individual learning strategies and learning behaviour] that persists though the content may change" (Fischer & Fischer 1975:245). Hill (1971) investigated cognitive style mapping, and Witkin, Moore, Oltman,  Goodenough, Friedman, Owen, & Raskin, (1977) wrote about field independent (analytic) versus field dependent (global) approaches to experiencing the environment and processing information. Other studies examined the influence of cognitive styles and affective variables in different learning situations (Brown, H.D. 1974; Hatch 1974; Naiman et al. 1978; Ely 1986a), and on academic achievement (Abraham 1983; Bialystok 1985; d'Anglejan et al. 1986; Bassano 1986; Chapelle & Roberts 1986).

Initial research into individual characteristics of learning styles was carried out by Dunn & Dunn (1972), who designed and implemented The Learning Style Inventory (Dunn, Dunn & Price 1975), a self-reporting questionnaire with twenty-one learning styles, focusing on conditions external to the learner (environmental, sociological, emotional, and physical variables). Messick et al (1976) and Gradman & Hanania (1991) also list more than twenty variables, though Skehan (1989) has eight, and Oxford & Erhman (1993) concentrate on nine. Thus agreement on the existence and importance of learning styles is tempered by a lack of consensus on their component parts, and on the meaning of various terms such as field dependence and field independence (cf. Griffiths & Sheen (1992) for a critical analysis of FI/FD). In later work, Dunn & Dunn (1979) identify perceptual learning modalities: i) visual learning: reading, studying charts; ii) auditory learning: listening to lectures, audiotapes, etc.; iii) kinaesthetic learning: experiential learning - total physical involvement with a learning situation; and iv) tactile learning: "hands-on" learning, such as building models or doing laboratory experiments. Gregorc (1982) also looks at internal perception and ordering of language intake in his Gregorc Learning Style Delineator. Research with U.S. school children (Dunn 1983; 1984; Reinert 1976) found that most students correctly identified their learning strengths, and that 20-30% of school age children appeared to be auditory learners, 40% visual learners, and the remaining 30-40% were tactile/kinaesthetic, visual/tactile, or another combination. Domino (1979) found that college students receiving instruction which reflected their preferred learning styles scored higher on tests (in terms of factual knowledge, attitude, and efficiency), though different research with secondary students (Hodges 1982) showed that "approximately 90% of traditional classroom instruction is geared to the auditory learner" (Hodges 1982:30-31), and that teachers tend to give higher grades to students who have the same Field style as they do (Hansen-Strain 1989:224). Thus some theorists suggest matching teachers' and students' Field styles (Dunn & Dunn 1979; Gregorc 1979b; Hunt 1979; Dunn 1984; Dunn, Dunn & Price 1986).

< >Other representations of learning modalities were proposed by Kagan (1966) and Kagan & Messer (1975), who identified conceptual tempo (reflectivity versus impulsivity in learning), by Gregorc (1979a; 1979b), who proposed concrete sequential, abstract sequential, abstract random, and concrete random learning styles, and by Kolb (1976, 1984), who also described four adaptive learning modes constituting a natural learning sequence of cyclic and interactive stages, continuing at ever deeper and more complex levels: concrete experience (CE), reflective observation (RO), abstract conceptualisation (AC) and active experimentation (AE) (table 22, below).



Willing (1988) characterises language learners in terms of active/passive and analytic/holistic dimensions (figure 13, below), interpreting Kolb's (1976) abstract-concrete dimensions as FI/D, and his four basic learning styles (divergers, assimilators, convergers, and accommodators), as variables in personality. Skehan (1998:250) also proposes two related dimensions for categorising learning styles (degree of analysis, and amount of memory), based on evidence that there are analysis-oriented learners and memory-oriented learners (Skehan 1986; Wesche 1981). Riechmann-Hruska represents learning styles of college students according to three dimensions: participant/avoidant, collaborative/competitive, and independent/dependent. 



*10% of learners do not fall clearly into any of the quadrants

Studies into culture-specific modes of learning (e.g. Wagner, Messick & Spratt 1986; Wong Fillmore 1986), indicate that non-native-speakers (NNSs) can successfully identify and describe second language learning strategies (e.g. practising, monitoring, inferencing, memorising, and self-directed learning) (cf. Bialystok & Frölich 1978; Krashen 1982; Carver 1984; Wenden 1984; 1986b; Oxford-Carpenter 1985), and that individuals vary in the strategies they employ because of differences in learning styles, affective styles, and cognitive styles. Hansen-Strain (1989:224) devised a Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) and administered it to Asian groups (including Koreans) in the ESL writing classes in the English Department at Brigham Young University (Hawaii, 1981-88), and found that Koreans "tended to be more field-independent, [and] the South Pacific groups more field-dependent". Wong (1985) describes the "sensory generalist" learning style of limited English proficient Asian students, and Reid (1987:96) provides a table (table 23, below) of ESL learning style preferences over nine language backgrounds, showing that in addition to having multiple learning style preferences (along with Arabic and Chinese students) Koreans were most visual in their learning style preferences, though (as with most other students), they preferred kinaesthetic and tactile learning as major learning styles. The second part of this finding is not confirmed by Stebbins (1995:111), who found that "Korean students strongly preferred visual learning", a situation that Lee (1976) attributed to the use of largely iconographic language systems in Asian cultures (Koreans learn their own phonetically-based alphabet ["hangul"



3.3.5.4. Discussion

The theory of learning styles has been applied to language learning in a number of ways. As mentioned in section 3.3.5.3 , Cognitive Style Mapping (CSM) was developed by Hill (1976) to provide information on how students receive and process information to derive meaning from their environment and personal experiences. These cognitive styles depend on family background, talent, personal goals and experience, and Hill believed that "90% of the students with normal ability can learn 90% of the material 90% of the time if the teaching methods and media are adjusted to the student's educational cognitive style" (Hill 1976:3). Skehan (1998) states that the main application of style to language learning has been through the concept of field dependence/independence (Witkin 1962), which Witkin et al. (1979) associate with analytic (FI) and holistic (FD) individuals (cf. Willing's two-dimensional framework of learning style, Figure 13). Analytic (FI) individuals tend not to be skilled at working in teams or groups, since they prefer to process information by themselves, generally avoiding practical use of the language for communication (Skehan 1998:238). FD individuals are generally more skilled in communicating using the target language, perceiving learning problems as wholes rather than as collections of constituent parts, though their capacity for information processing is less. From this, it can be inferred that FD learners will generally perform well in communicative oral tests, and that FI individuals should do better on non-communicative, more cerebral tests of language. Given that learning styles are adaptable, this raises the question of whether FI learners should be exposed to more communicative learning problems, and whether FD learners need to acquire analytical skills. However, Riding & Cheema (1991) see two basic problems with the FI/FD distinction, arguing that an additional dimension, contrasting visual and verbal representations, is needed. Skehan (1998:239) also poses questions of extremity (what does FI/FD tell us about the people who are not at the extremes?), fixedness (what does this tell us about adaptability?), and measurement. He then proposes an alternative way to viewing different learning styles, via a three-stage information-processing framework (table 24, below). In Stage 1, (perception, or input) the emphasis is on the way in which individuals interact with information in the environment. In Stage 2, language input is manipulated, and in Stage 3, representations, links and associations are established for organisation and retrieval of information from the long-term memory. This framework provides a wider perspective for the concerns of different researchers, reducing the confusion caused by use of different terms.



3.3.5.5. Conclusion

A number of commentators see the topic of learning styles as an issue of awareness, advocating a student-centred learning environment (Kinsella 1995:193) in which individual (and cultural) learning differences are identified, understood (Grasha 1984:51), and their potential for learning maximised (Stebbins 1995:116). Thus Eliason (1995) speaks of student and teacher awareness being "the key advantage that learning-styles information has to offer us" (Eliason 1995:27), and Dixon (1985) proposes a "learner-centred approach to learning styles, where students are responsible for utilising individual learning-styles information, and teachers are responsible for creating and fostering and environment that encourages and accommodates diversity". Introducing learning-styles information in the classroom and encouraging introspection on the part of the student to help identify and assess individual learning styles could therefore be a worthwhile goal for the teacher, along with allowing students to sample unfamiliar teaching and learning styles (Eliason 1995:27; Reid 1987:101), leading to student empowerment and an "increase in achievement and self-confidence" (Claxton & Murrell 1987:54).

Skehan (1998:237) points out that research into learning styles was held up for some time because of the assumption (resulting from the study of aptitude) that some people have an innate ability to learn languages, whereas the learning style perspective implies that individual styles may partly reflect personal preference, and are therefore susceptible to change. There is also the possibility that the advantages of learning styles may not be applicable only at one end of a learning continuum. Given this lack of research, Reid (1987:103) calls for studies focussing on a long-term integrated student profile (cognitive, affective, and perceptual), and for environmental studies into the relationships between teaching and learning styles and developmental processes. Williams & Burden (1997) also see the area of individual differences as "fraught with unanswered questions” and call for "an approach which will focus on the unique contribution that each individual brings to the learning situation, and on how the teacher can assist the learner in learning most effectively” (1997:95). In doing this, they itemise problems resulting from research into learner differences:

1. Traditional research on individual differences has been mainly concerned with measuring, labelling and grouping people.
2. The purpose of such research is usually not to identify how individuals differ but to group them according to perceived similarities.
3. The findings have been of limited practical value because they do not inform us how we can help any individual to become a more effective learner.
4. In many instances they do not even help us to improve the functioning of the groups that are identified by the research.
5. Research in this area is often based on a theory of learning which views people's behaviour as being heavily influenced by certain fixed traits or attributes which are fixed. (Williams & Burden 1997:95)

Skehan (1998) provides a more optimistic summary of research to date, concluding that the concept of learning style is sufficiently developed to underpin further research:

1. There have been advances in overcoming measurement limitations.
2. Greater conceptual clarity has been achieved by separating learning ability and style.
3. Richer conceptualisations of style exist, all resting on two dimensions of variation.
4. Some of these conceptualisations are consistent with an information processing framework, and with a distinction between representation and process.
5. The proposals by different investigators can be related to information-processing stages. (Skehan 1998:256)

Eliason provides a fitting conclusion on learning styles and their implications for language learning and teaching:

... we may very well find that the most important outcome for learning-styles assessment and information dissemination is not whether we label ourselves and our students as visual or kinaesthetic, ... or as accommodators or divergers, but rather whether we are able to acknowledge and celebrate the various types and processes we and our students bring to the classroom, while continuing to both accommodate and diverge. (1995:32)

Continue reading this literature review on affect: The Learning Environment

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[1] Items 1-13 = Pine & Boy 1977:122; items 14 - 22 = Pine & Boy 1977:156.