Communication Skills

YOUR LEARNING PROFILE

Psychological research has examined several basic principles that help to explain how the behaviour of all organisms-including human beings-is greatly affected by experience. Psychologists refer to these effects on behaviour as learning. We learn from our direct or vicarious interactions with the world around us. There can be no doubt that learning is a key process in human behaviour and appears to play an important role in virtually every activity we perform-from mastering complex skills to falling in love. Different people employ different modes of learning. Some tend to learn using an active experimentation approach, while others feel more comfortable with their reflective observation style of learning. Such approaches nevertheless, reflect different personality types with their characteristic learning profiles.

Below are described different categories of approaches used in learning. Each category comprises four adjectives. Assign a score of 4 to the objective which best characterizes your distinctive approach to learning. Assign a score of 1 against the adjective least expressive of your learning approach. In like manner, give scores of 3 and 2 to adjectives which appear next in the hierarchy of relative importance with regard to your learning mechanism.

Category A: Instinctive, Feeling-Oriented, Present-Oriented, Experience-Oriented.

Category B: Sensitive, Reflective, Perceptive, Transparent.

Category C: Analytical, Evaluative, Future-Oriented, Theoretical.

Category D: Based on Practice, Experimental, Risk-Talking, application-Oriented.

Add up the scores assigned to each adjective for each category separately to find out which one is your predominant category.

Interpretation

Category A-Concrete experience

You tend to make maximum use of concrete experience in your learning propositions. You are practical in your personal life. Talking life one day at a time, you like to live in the present. Your interactions with your fellow beings are receptive and experience-oriented. You seem to be a hard core realist and believe in concrete realism.

Category B-Reflective observer

You are a reflective observer, making use of sensitive observation and perceptive understanding while you learn. You often encounter situations in which you acquire new information, forms of behaviour or even abstract rules and concepts from watching other persons. Such observational learning is a common part of your everyday life and play an important role in almost every aspect of your behaviour. You like to look up to models who are vital in shaping your behavioural patterns. Hence, you appear to learn vicariously, by watching the actions of others and the consequences they experience.

Category C-Abstract conceptualizer

You seem to be an abstract conceptualizer making use of your analytical ability in terms of categorization and evaluation on theoretical grounds. Your intellectual and logical skills make you rational and future-oriented in your approach to learning.

Category D-Active experimenter

You have a tendency towards active experimentation. Your approach to learning is based on practice, experiment ation and is application-oriented. You have a questioning and curious mind which is keen to achieve and is active, decisive and responsive. You like to take to active testing, experimenting, applying and risk taking in order to achieve the goal in a learning situation.