Learning styles have been widely accepted in pedagogical practice but suffer from a distinct lack of empirical support. While a diverse range of learning styles have been proposed, modality preference has received the most attention within educational research and practice. Supporters of this theory posit that each individual has a dominant sense…

Before instruction, 192 nursing students completed Kolb's Learning Style Inventory; 53.7% were concrete learners, 46.3% reflective. No significant associations appeared between learning style and age, sex, prior employment, or educational attainment. Methodological problems were found with using this instrument in nursing education. (SK)

This paper examines and critiques several learning style inventories (LSI) in an effort to find the optimal research instrument for a proposed empirical study of both the quality of courseware and the impact of courseware characteristics on variations of learning effectiveness due to learner characteristics. Five LSIs are examined: (1) Dunn LSI;…