Kolb Learning Style Inventory V3.1

by David A. Kolb

"We've used the Kolb learning style inventory in our Leadership and Coach Training for the past 5 years and can only say...if you're not using it, you're missing out on an opportunity to mass customize learning to the individual leader, manager or employee. Learning style may be the simplest, most cost effective way to produce results. (period)" - Mike R. Jay, Founder - Leadership University. Everyone has their own way of learning. The KLSI recognizes individual learning preferences, while encouraging individuals to expand and apply their learning strengths. Understanding your own style – and that of other people – can help you tune into the needs of others so that you and your team work more effectively. Use the Kolb learning style inventory (KLSI) to help your employees and students: understand how their learning style impacts upon problem solving, teamwork, handling conflict, communication, develop their learning styles to fit their roles, find out why teams work well or badly together, strengthen their overall learning. Why choose the KLSI? Understanding how people learn can help you to target your training and development efforts, motivate teams and make optimum use of your collective time, resources and capabilities. The KLSI recognizes individual learning preferences, while encouraging individuals to expand their learning strengths. Based on experiential learning theory, the learning style inventory was developed by David Kolb Ph.D. with research that began in 1971. It identifies four phases in the learning process. Experiencing: learning from experiences, being sensitive to feelings and people. Reflecting: reserving judgment, taking different perspectives, looking for meaning. Thinking: logically analyzing ideas, planning systematically, using concepts. Acting: showing an ability to get things done, taking risks, influencing. Everyone has a tendency to learn from one of these preferred phases.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Pablo María Fernández · Rating 3 out of 5]

I discovered this booklet in ITBA’s university library. Kolb provides a matrix for different concepts related to learning styles: Concrete Experience (CE), Reflective Observation (RO), Abstract Conceptualization (AC) and Active Experimentation (AE). Depending on your scores on Kolb's test you belong to a particular profile: Assimilating, Converging, Diverging, Accommodating or a combination of two of them. I made an online test (the official one has a cost so I found a free one --although I doubt it is right-) and it said that I have an Assimilating profile.

I found out later that this booklet is not only outdated (Kolb launched a 4.0 version later) but he also moved from KLSI (Kolb Learning Style Inventory) to KELP (Kolb Experiential Learning Profile). The main difference is that he evolved from the fixed profiles we found here to growth mindsets, which is the new wave on this topic in which we may have some natural preferences but we can develop new skills. Despite that, I still found a couple of interesting concepts. Having read before other authors on this topic it didn’t surprise me too much but it is another mental framework that could be useful for some people.