Kolb’s learning style

David Kolb developed learning as a four-stage process that includes “concrete experience (feeling), reflective observation (watching), abstract conceptualisation (thinking), and active experimentation (doing)” (Heffeler, 2001; Sara and Michael, 2007; Thomas and Amit, 2007; Webb, 2006). Kolb and Smith (1996) asserted that people learn through their experience and the role of experience is important in shaping the process of learning. This is also consistent with the study of Kouzes and Posner (1995), suggesting that role experience is strongly related to the way managers learn how to lead.

In addition, Mezirow (1994, p. 222-223) defines learning as “the social process of construing and appropriating a new or revised interpretation of meaning of one’s experience as a guide to action.” Posner (2009) also proposed that people learn from their experience, however formal or informal, structured or naturally occurring. He examined the relationship between learning styles and leadership

styles, and explored how these various learning styles might relate to how respondents actually behave as leaders. He found that there is an association between those two variables. He also suggested that leadership development is a learning process in itself. So, he recommended that the implications of his research would be: first, learning style would be able to help managers to apply strategies to make better choices about putting themselves into situations where they can learn the most. Second, because learning occurs through a variety of modalities, any effort to develop leadership skills would benefit from designs that access more than one learning style or modality. Third, working with personal (cognitive) reflection activities may be the key to developing inspiring and shared vision leadership behaviours.

Kolb (1984) is founded on how experiences are interpreted into concepts that provide direction during new experiences. He also explained that the learning cycle can start at any stage. Each stage explains how people develop information, and he (Kolb, 1976) identified four types of learner based on the learning cycle.

Divergers most easily learn through concrete experience and reflective

observation. They are comparatively imaginative, and prefer to apply their experience to identify the problem and potential solution.

In addition, divergers are good at generating new perspectives by reflecting on their former experience. Assmilators are likely to learn through reflective observation and abstract conceptualisation. They are good at planning, creating and defining, and they can develop complicated plans, but they are not practical.

Convergers’ strength lies in applying practical ideas, and they focus within their

specialist domain on specific problems. They must be grounded in abstract conceptualisation and then actively experiment. They are good at designing things, making decisions and evaluating plans, but they are likely to conclude problems too rapidly, leading them to solve the wrong problem. Accommodators learn most readily by expanding upon active experimentation with concrete experience. They become accustomed to immediate circumstances and are instinctive. They are willing to try new activities through a trial and error approach, strive for accomplishment and enjoy putting plans into action. If the plan does not fit the facts, they will leave the plan and continue to complete the task (Duff and Duffy, 2002; Frido, 2004; Kolb, 1976).

In addition, Kolb and Smith (1996) proposed the last two stages of learning cycles, which are abstract conceptualisation (thinking) and active experimentation (doing), are related to the situation of the manager in the organisation faced with a myriad new challenges and information; the manager must begin utilising learning skills contained within all four stages of the learning cycles. This idea provides a significant connection in the need to investigate the relationship between learning styles and leadership styles; in particular, when managers deal with complex situations and information which requires them to make crucial decisions.

However, there are several potential problems with Learning Style Inventory (LSI) such as redundancy between learning style orientation and personality

(Jackson & Lawty-Jones, 1996). The items used in previous measurements tend to ask for self-report of general and behavioural patterns rather than focusing specifically on the learning situation. Also, Cornwell and Manfredo (1994) criticised LSI’s use of force-ranking scoring because it contains no information about the relative differences among individuals on the four scales. Rather, the measure only rank orders the learning styles for a single person. Factor analyses on LSI have consistently demonstrated a two-factor bipolar dimension that runs from thinking to doing and from feeling to watching (Cornwell et al., 1991;

Geiger et al., 1993).

Moreover, although Kolb’s learning style inventory has been criticised for contradictory and inconsistent findings (see, for example, Allinson and Hayes, 1990; Duff, 2004b; Loo, 1996; 1999), a variety of researchers in different disciplines have applied his learning style to increase productivity and encourage learning in organisations.

Frido (2004) applied Kolb’s learning cycle to study the differences of behaviour between the members of new product development and production groups. This empirical study gathered data from two companies, one producing consumer electronics and the other high-end lighting products. In each company, eight people were interviewed, and four people selected from each team. They found that different learning styles are crucial to different stages of new product development and production. However, conflicts could arise between the two teams because of members’ different learning styles, and the researchers

suggested that employees should be able to adjust from one learning style to another, depending on the situation, in order to work more effectively.

Next, Buch and Bartley (2002) studied the relationship between Kolb’s theory of learning style and the preferred training methods of employees in financial institutions in the southeast USA. Questionnaires were given to 337 employees, and 165 were completed and returned. Friedman’s and Chi-square statistical tests were applied to the data. They found a significant difference between different preferred training methods and different learning styles, and suggested that learners should take into account that, to maximise learning outcomes; learners should take responsibility for determining their own skill-acquisition agenda and learning style. They also recommended that learners’ experience may be an important factor in driving the choice of learning style. They suggested that learning style would be an appropriate tool to investigate what trainers should do to facilitate learning in the organisation, but future research would require identifying other potential tools and strategies.

Heffeler (2001) studied the relationship between age and gender of the college students and their learning styles. Kolb’s learning style inventory was applied, and data collected twice with eighty five and seventy respondents respectively.

Product-moment correlation coefficients were used, but no correlation was found between age and learning style; there were gender differences in some learning styles. In addition, Severiens and Dam (1997) found that gender did not have a significant correlation with learning styles but age has a significant correlation

with learning styles. Similarly, Furnham (1992) found that the respondents with different personalities have different learning styles and use different decision-making strategies, which are effective in different business environment. Also, respondents with different levels of education are suited to different learning styles.