The Kolb Learning Style Inventory—Version 3.1 2005 - Whitewater ...

2. THE LEARNING STYLE INVENTORY
PURPOSE
The Learning Style Inventory (LSI) was created to fulfi ll two purposes:
1. To serve as an educational tool to increase individuals’ understanding of the process of learning from experience
and their unique individual approach to learning. By increasing awareness of how they learn, the aim is
to increase learners’ capacity for meta-cognitive control of their learning process, enabling them to monitor
and select learning approaches that work best for them in different learning situations. By providing a language
for talking about learning styles and the learning process, the inventory can foster conversation among
learners and educators about how to create the most effective learning environment for those involved. For
this purpose, the inventory is best presented not as a test, but as an experience in understanding how one
learns. Scores on the inventory should not be interpreted as defi nitive, but as a starting point for exploration
of how one learns best. To facilitate this purpose, a self-scoring and interpretation book that explains
the experiential learning cycle and the characteristics of the different learning styles, along with scoring and
profi ling instructions, is included with the inventory.
2. To provide a research tool for investigating experiential learning theory (ELT) and the characteristics of
individual learning styles. This research can contribute to the broad advancement of experiential learning
and, specifi cally, to the validity of interpretations of individual learning style scores. A research version of the
instrument, including only the inventory to be scored by the researcher, is available for this purpose.
The LSI is not a criterion-referenced test and is not intended for use to predict behavior for purposes of selection,
placement, job assignment, or selective treatment. This includes not using the instrument to assign learners to different
educational treatments, a process sometimes referred to as tracking. Such categorizations based on a single test
score amount to stereotyping that runs counter to the philosophy of experiential learning, which emphasizes individual
uniqueness. “When it is used in the simple, straightforward, and open way intended, the LSI usually provides
a valuable self-examination and discussion that recognizes the uniqueness, complexity, and variability in individual
approaches to learning. The danger lies in the reifi cation of learning styles into fi xed traits, such that learning styles
become stereotypes used to pigeonhole individuals and their behavior.” (Kolb 1981a: 290-291)
The LSI is constructed as a self-assessment exercise and tool for construct validation of ELT. Tests designed for predictive
validity typically begin with a criterion, such as academic achievement, and work backward to identify items or
tests with high criterion correlations. Even so, even the most sophisticated of these tests rarely rises above a .5 correlation
with the criterion. For example, while Graduate Record Examination Subject Test scores are better predictors of
fi rst-year graduate school grades than either the General Test score or undergraduate GPA, the combination of these
three measures only produces multiple correlations with grades ranging from .4 to .6 in various fi elds (Anastasi and
Urbina 1997).
Construct validation is not focused on an outcome criterion, but on the theory or construct the test measures. Here
the emphasis is on the pattern of convergent and discriminant theoretical predictions made by the theory. Failure to
confi rm predictions calls into question the test and the theory. “However, even if each of the correlations proved to
be quite low, their cumulative effect would be to support the validity of the test and the underlying theory.” (Selltiz,
Jahoda, Deutsch, and Cook 1960: 160) Judged by the standards of construct validity, ELT has been widely accepted as
a useful framework for learning-centered educational innovation, including instructional design, curriculum development,
and life-long learning. Field and job classifi cation studies viewed as a whole also show a pattern of results
consistent with the ELT structure of knowledge theory.
8 LSI Technical Manual