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Myers and McCaulley (1985) report a test–retest reliability meta-analysis on a sample of 102,174 respondents (Table 13) which appears to be robust. Boyle’s review (1995) notes that the best results (for Form F) are reported stability coefficients of between 0.69 (T-F) and 0.78 (E-I), which, though lower than those in Table 13, are still acceptable. Advocates who have interpreted MBTI retest scores positively (eg Carlson 1980, De Vito 1985, Murray 1990) have, according to Pittenger (1993), used trait judgement criteria, implying a continuum, rather than type criteria, reflecting the (allegedly) dichotomous nature of the scales. This criticism is repeated in reviews of Form M where it is accepted that MBTI scales show ‘very high levels of internal consistency (mostly >0.90) and acceptable [actually very high] levels of test–retest reliability (0.83–0.97 for a 4-week interval). However, the authors clearly state that the MBTI is meant to identify a person’s whole type (eg ENTP)’ (Fleenor 2001; see also Mastrangelo 2001). The evidence of whole-type stability from the manual (Myers and McCaulley 1985) appears to be a little less impressive, with 65% of respondents maintaining their type and most of the remaining 35% showing consistency in three out of four scales (n=424). The stability of the MBTI type allocations are open to question in part because the middle scores are prone to misinterpretation, since they are forced one way or the other, despite small numerical differences. For example, Howes and Carskadon (1979) found that for scores within 15 points of neutral, between 25% and 32% of respondents had changed on the second test. A meta-analysis of reliability across 210 recent studies (Capraro and Capraro 2002) notes that most authors of studies using the MBTI do not engage with issues of reliability at all; however, when reliability data was available, ‘the MBTI tended to yield acceptable score reliabilities’ (2002, 596) of around 0.81 (standard deviation 0.08). In addition, Capraro and Capraro (2002, 599) emphasise that the reliability of an instrument is context-specific: ‘dependent on sample characteristics and testing conditions.’ Indeed, while Salter, Evans and Forney (1997, 595) report ‘some stability (ranging from 0.69 to 0.77)’ over 20 months, they warn that the impact of environmental factors on changes to individuals’ MBTI scores is under-researched. A lot of work has been done comparing the MBTI to other scales, which can be summarised as follows. McCrae and Costa’s (1989) study indicates that there are correlations between the NEO-PI scales and the MBTI, despite the omission of neuroticism from the MBTI; while Furnham (1996a, 306) detects ‘clear overlap’, despite promoting the psychometric superiority of the NEO-PI. Drummond and Stoddard (1992, 103) note connections between the MBTI and the Gregorc Style Delineator, concluding that ‘the Gregorc measures some of the same dimensions as the Myers-Briggs but uses different labels’. Spirrison and Gordy (1994) find the Constructive Thinking Indicator predictive of scores on the MBTI. Lim (1994) found moderate relationships between introversion on the MBTI and abstract and reflective tendencies on Kolb’s LSI. Higgs (2001) was able to find only partial correlations between MBTI type and emotional intelligence. While there are many attempts to link and correlate the MBTI with other measures of learning style, some of these (eg Nordvik 1996; or see Di Tiberio 1996 for an overview) seem to be predicated on the belief that if there are some modest correlations between, say, three disparate measures, they all somehow validate one another. Indeed, it could be argued that the theoretical descriptions of dimensions in the MBTI differ substantially from dimensions with similar names in other typologies, since the MBTI is the only one of these that remains firmly connected to Jung’s theoretical constructs. This suggests that the connections with other tests are not of themselves a good measure of the MBTI’s validity or relevance to the field of learning styles, since the field of learning styles is beset with problems in terms of establishing shared definitions of key terms. The huge body of work which exists on the MBTI must be examined with the critical awareness that a considerable proportion (estimated to be between a third and a half of the published material) has been produced for conferences organised by the Center for the Application of Psychological Type or as papers for the Journal of Psychological Type, both of which are organised and edited by Myers-Briggs advocates. Pittenger (1993, 478) asserts that ‘the research on the MBTI was designed to confirm not refute the MBTI theory’. A good example of this is the study by Saggino, Cooper and Kline (2001), which starts from a position which assumes the validity of the MBTI and tests new versions of it against itself. As Mastrangelo (2001) argues, the ‘research [on the MBTI] need[s] to be presented in journals besides the Journal of Psychological Type … The most widely used psychological measure should demand scientific scrutiny to improve service to the public.’ 10 10 Page numbers are not available for online Buros reports from the Mental Measurements Yearbooks.
LSRC reference Section 5 page 50/51 Implications for pedagogy Some supporters of the MBTI stress the versatility of individuals to move beyond their ‘dominant function’ to exploit or develop ‘auxiliary preferences’ (Bayne 1994); however, both Jung and Myers subscribed to a view of personality type as at least dominant by adulthood, suggesting that this versatility would be limited by the individual’s strong and habituated preferences. Moreover, the complex interaction of type dynamics tends to be obscured when the debate moves to ‘testing’ and ‘matching’ in educational contexts. Here, as elsewhere, the evidence is inconclusive: Hartman, Hylton and Sanders (1997) argue that their study of 323 undergraduates lends weight to the idea that some elements of MBTI type are linked to the dominance of a particular brain hemisphere (specifically, intuition-perceiving/ right-brained and sensing-judging/left-brained), which implies that a change in style is less likely. The MBTI’s claim to classify individuals into taxonomic categories has been described (Bouchard and Hur 1998, 147) as ‘a controversial claim … virtually no mainstream personality researchers adopt this view … [and if] the latent traits underlying the MBTI are truly categorical rather than continuous, it is still likely to be the case that the influences underlying the categories are strongly genetic in origin.’ This calls into question the idea that MBTI results can or should be used for enhancing students’ repertoires of styles. Some MBTI advocates appear to accept the stability of types and suggest that the utility of the instrument lies in using test results to provide ‘matching’ pedagogical experiences for students in a bid to improve retention (Van 1992) – in particular, taking account of the apparent correlation between high academic achievement and intuitive-judging types (NJ). Gordon and Yocke’s extremely small study (1999) of 22 new entrants to the teaching profession appears to support the link between sensing types and lower levels of performance. Sears, Kennedy and Kaye (1997) have mapped in detail the links between MBTI types and specialism choices among student teachers, and among other results, report the finding that sensing types are dominant among teachers in elementary (primary) education. Extra support for sensing types, including the provision of more practical and multimedia instructional opportunities is suggested, although the utility of this approach has been questioned by Spence and Tsai (1997). Their study was unable to find any significant relationship between MBTI type and method of information processing, finding instead that subjects used a range of methods which were task-specific. In addition, Di Tiberio (1996), reflecting on 10 years of research on the MBTI, concludes that there is no satisfactory evidence to suggest that matching instructor and learner style has any impact on student satisfaction or achievement. The use of the MBTI for ‘best fit’ career advice, while widespread, particularly in medicine (Stilwell et al. 1998) and business (McIntyre and Meloche 1995), is flawed because testing people already within a profession does not include the effects of environment and communities of practice on observable personality traits. In addition, there are gender differences in different professions; for example, correlations between type and career choice are much higher for female teachers than for male teachers. Moreover, the tendency to use the results from a group of vocational students as evidence of the range of career orientations within the population as a whole, or within a profession (see eg Jarlstrom 2000) is disturbing, since the obvious social, cultural and racial limitations of undergraduate samples are ignored. The MBTI, while it focuses on the personality type of the individual, has a well-established role in locating and understanding interpersonal and community dynamics. The findings of Edwards, Lanning and Hooker (2002, 445) that intuitive-judging types are ‘better able to rationally integrate situational factors in making judgements of personality’, may have some application to teacher–student relationships, particularly in relation to assessment. The MBTI has been adapted for many different countries and some advocates of the instrument feel that it has utility in describing national or cultural differences, for although Jung believed that type is universal, there may be differences in distribution and cultural influences which mitigate the expression of type (Quenck 2003). Abramson et al. (1993) argue, for example, that an awareness of the fact that Japanese MBA students have a more feeling-based cognitive style than Canadian MBA students, combined with a greater self-awareness on the part of managers about their own cognitive style, could improve business negotiations more effectively than simple ‘cultural awareness’ training. Empirical evidence for pedagogical impact As yet, evidence of use for the MBTI in terms of specific learning outcomes is sparse, although Woolhouse and Bayne (2000) claim that individual differences in the use of intuition are correlated with the sensing-intuitive dimension. Thorne and Gough (1999), in their analysis of 10 years of MBTI results, are able to identify only moderate links between high verbal and vocabulary scores and extrovert males and sensing females. Similarly, Harasym et al. (1995a, 1996) find that type does not predict achievement for nursing students, while Oswick and Barber (1998) find no correlation between MBTI type and achievement in their sample of undergraduates.
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LSRC reference Contents 1 9 13 37 4
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Page 9 and 10: LSRC reference Acknowledgements The
Page 11 and 12: Section 1 A systematic review of le
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Page 35 and 36: Table 4 Percentages of respondents
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Table 44 13 learning-styles models
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