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Does the Learning Styles Questionnaire Measure Style or Process? A Reply to Swailes and Senior (1999)
Author(s) -
SadlerSmith Eugene
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
international journal of selection and assessment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.812
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1468-2389
pISSN - 0965-075X
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2389.00173
Subject(s) - psychology , confirmatory factor analysis , style (visual arts) , experiential learning , learning styles , construct (python library) , factor (programming language) , social psychology , embodied cognition , process (computing) , argument (complex analysis) , structural equation modeling , construct validity , psychometrics , mathematics education , developmental psychology , epistemology , statistics , mathematics , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , archaeology , computer science , history , programming language , operating system
Swailes and Senior’s (1999) examination of the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ) raised a number of questions regarding the instrument’s construct validity and the relationship between learning style and learning process. Swailes and Senior argued that there may be three learning styles as opposed to the four posited by Honey and Mumford (1986), however, they did not include a three‐factor model in their confirmatory factor analysis and hence it is unclear if a three‐factor solution represents an improvement on a four‐factor solution. Furthermore, the present study draws a distinction between style and process and an argument is presented which contends that the three‐factor and four‐factor solutions represent process models, as opposed to the style models embodied in Kolb’s theory. This reply attempts to examine two‐ three‐ and four‐factor solutions for the LSQ. The evidence appears to favour the conventional four‐factor model, which may indicate that the LSQ measures individuals’ preferences for each of four stages of an experiential learning process and raises the question of its relationship with style per se .