Using Learning Logs to help students explore their Learning Styles
Combined Honours Unit
University of Central Lancashire
Learning logs are a form of structured learning journal which explicitly require users to utilise all four elements within Kolb's theory of experiential learning. As such they can be used to help students explore the nature of different Learning Styles as well as facilitating their own development. This paper begins by describing how they have been used in a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and focuses on the benefits and drawbacks of linking such use to instruments such as the Learning Styles Inventory (Kolb 1976) and the Learning Styles Questionnaire (Honey and Mumford 1982). It goes on to explore the problems inherent in the approach and presents some evaluation data derived from student feedback (quantitative and qualitative). The paper concludes with some proposals for the development of the Learning Log approach (specifically, one requiring users to explicitly address their learning in terms of Propositional, Affective and Procedural knowledge) and finally outlines ways in which Learning Logs may be used further in research into Learning Styles with education.