Myers & Briggs Learning Styles
The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a popular psychological profiling tool in business and academia. It sorts people into 16 personality types to help them learn about their own strengths, motivations and interests. In the classroom, the MBTI can help us better understand how individual students learn and organize information and how teachers present lessons.
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History
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In the first half of the 20th century, Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers developed a system for identifying personality traits and their strengths. Their work was heavily influenced by Carl Jung. The profile was originally created as a career tool for women entering the workforce after World War II, but it was not fully developed and published until 1962. Today the MBTI is maintained and administered by the Myers & Briggs Foundation.
Features
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The MBTI is a lengthy questionnaire that offers respondents two choices for each question. Each choice reflects a different perspective on the world, a different process for taking in and evaluating information or a different type of comfort with social interaction. Based on the respondent's answers, the test will classify that person into one of 16 different personality types.
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Types
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The 16 Myers Briggs types are based on the possible combinations of four dichotomies: extroversion versus introversion, sensing versus intuition, thinking versus feeling and judging versus perceiving.
Extroversion and introversion describe how people prefer to interact with others. Generally speaking, extroverts gain energy from social interaction, while introverts expend energy when dealing with others. Introverts need to think and then do; extroverts need to do and then think.
Sensing and intuition are how people get information about the world around them. People who prefer sensing trust their five senses, and those who prefer intuition trust abstract facts and theories.
Thinking and feeling are the ways people make decisions. Thinkers prefer to make objective judgments, while feelers prefer to consider how people will feel about the decision.
Judging and perceiving reflect when people make decisions. People who prefer judging like to have matters settled, whereas people who prefer perceiving like to keep their options open.
Benefits
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Tailoring lessons to a student's learning style allows the student to get more out of the class and helps prevent frustration on the part of the student and teacher. The Myers Briggs system is intended to help a teacher recognize that, for example, a student who seems to be distracted and "acting out" instead of studying quietly may be an extrovert who would benefit from having a group-learning activity rather than individual study time.
Considerations
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None of the 16 personality types are considered to be better or worse than any other, though some are distinctly more common than others. They should be used to help understand one another, rather than to label or stereotype. An introverted student may still benefit from group activities, and a perceiving student may also be good at coming to firm decisions.
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