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The Learning Styles Questionnaire was first published in 1982. We developed it following our original experiences with David Kolb's groundbreaking Learning Styles Inventory(1). Our experience with the Kolb LSI, drawn together with our experience of a variety of learning activities in fact matched the learning cycle which Kolb identified. We had experiences, reflected on them, drew conclusions about them and then decided to develop our own version of the learning cycle and our own questionnaire. Like Kolb, we believe that learning is essentially a four-stage experience, and our version of the cycle is very similar to his (see Figure 1).(Figure 1 omitted)
Our questionnaire differs from David Kolb's in a number of important respects. We were, for example, convinced that for the population with whom we work--managers and professional people--the crucial point was to focus the questionnaire on real work activities, rather than the abstract words which were the basis of Kolb's first LSI. A second characteristic of our questionnaire is that it leads directly to the identification of those kinds of behaviour which reduce an individual's capacity as a learner. Anyone who fills in the questionnaire can therefore take action for themselves immediately in trying to change their score "on a particular question". We then developed this approach further, by producing a personal workbook which enables individuals to identify actions which they can undertake to build on their preferred learning style(2).
In 1986 we published in our second edition of the Manual of Learning Styles a revised version of the Learning Styles Questionnaire. This took out the British colloquialisms which we had deliberately built in to the first version. We had not anticipated that the LSQ would be successful around the world (now used in 20 countries) and had not therefore considered how a German would understand a phrase such as "life and soul of the party". The third edition of the Manual of earning Styles published in 1992 does not contain further changes to the questionnaire, but does include a substantial amount of new information, and suggestions on how the LSQ should be used by trainers(3).
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE QUESTIONNAIRE
We have included in it a section reviewing the questions most frequently asked of us. It is interesting to note that we are...