learning-styles

7.2
Vermunt’s framework for classifying learning
styles and his Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS)
Introduction
Jan Vermunt is an associate professor in the Graduate
School of Education at Leiden University. He also
has a part-time role as professor of educational
innovation in higher education at Limburg University.
His main areas of research and publication have been
higher education, teaching and teacher education.
He began his research on the regulation of learning
(ie the direction, monitoring and control of learning)
and on process-oriented instruction in the psychology
department at Tilburg University in the late 1980s.
Vermunt has published extensively in English and
in Dutch, and his Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS)
is available in both languages.
Definitions, description and scope
For Vermunt, the terms ‘approach to learning’ and
‘learning style’ are synonymous. He has tried to find
out how far individuals maintain a degree of consistency
across learning situations. He defines learning style
(1996, 29) as ‘a coherent whole of learning activities
that students usually employ, their learning orientation
and their mental model of learning’. He adds that
‘Learning style is not conceived of as an unchangeable
personality attribute, but as the result of the temporal
interplay between personal and contextual influences’.
This definition of learning style seeks to be flexible
and integrative and, in comparison with earlier
approaches, strongly emphasises metacognitive
knowledge and self-regulation. It is concerned with
both declarative and procedural knowledge, including
self-knowledge. It deals not only with cognitive
processing, but also with motivation, effort and feelings
(and their regulation). However its formulation was
not directly influenced by personality theory.
Within Vermunt’s framework, four learning styles
are defined: meaning-directed, application-directed,
reproduction-directed and undirected. Each is said
(1996) to have distinguishing features in five areas:
the way in which students cognitively process learning
contents (what students do)
the learning orientations of students (why they do it)
the affective processes that occur during studying
(how they feel about it)
the mental learning models of students
(how they see learning)
the way in which students regulate their learning
(how they plan and monitor learning).
The resulting 4x5 matrix is shown in Table 35 and
suggests linked sets of behavioural, cognitive, affective,
conative and metacognitive characteristics. However,
it should be noted that the framework is conceived
as a flexible one. Vermunt does not claim that his
learning styles are mutually exclusive, nor that for all
learners, the links between areas are always consistent
with his theory. The case illustrations and quotations
provided by Vermunt (1996) are captured in summary
form as learner characteristics in Table 35. His four
prototypical learning styles are set out in columns
from left (high) to right (low) in terms of their presumed
value as regards engagement with, and success in,
academic studies.
Origins
Developed through his doctoral research project (1992),
Vermunt’s framework has clearly been influenced
by several lines of research about deep, surface and
strategic approaches to learning that date back to
the 1970s, and by Flavell’s ideas about metacognition
(eg Flavell 1979). The work began with the qualitative
analysis of interviews and later added a quantitative
dimension through the development and use of the ILS
(Vermunt 1994).
The Inventory of Learning Styles
Description of the measure
When the ILS was published, the original framework
was simplified in that affective processes did
not appear as a separate area. However, the area
of learning orientations remains, encompassing
long-term motivation and goals, and (to a lesser extent)
dimensions of interest and confidence. The ILS is
a 120-item self-rating instrument, using 5-point Likert
scales. Its composition in terms of areas is shown
in Table 36.
Reliability and validity
Statistical evidence to support the grouping of items
into sub-scales has been provided. In two large-scale
studies, Vermunt (1998) found that alpha values
for the sub-scales were generally higher than 0.70.
Confirmatory second-order factor analysis supported
in almost every detail the grouping of sub-scales into
Vermunt’s hypothesised four learning styles, although
there was some overlap between styles.