Determining Your Learning Style

I am a firm believer that finding out about your individual learning style can be a very helpful tool when you begin an academic year (or program, semester, class, section, chapter ...).  I wrote about the topic previously in this post, where I linked to the Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire that I prefer to use with students.  You can find these everywhere: a simple web search of Learning Styles Questionnaires or Learning Styles Inventories will turn up a number of links.  I prefer to use one with a little bit of research behind it, and some that take less time actually give you less information.

While some personality tests also provide some information about how you best process information or learn, a learning styles inventory asks specific questions to help you not only determine if you are visual or verbal, but also if you are a global thinker or more sequential, if you are more active or not, etc.  Sometimes even the mode of delivery of the information matters: some people learn better by having something read to them, rather than them reading the words themselves.

Finding out early - in the semester, in the year, in your program - how you best deal with a content-rich course can help you use what you find out about yourself and your learning style to plan study habits that will provide the most impact to your learning.