learning-styles

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.