Learning Profile

Learning profile refers to preferred modes of learning or ways in which students will best process what they need to learn. Learning profile is shaped by a person’s gender, culture, learning style, and intelligence preference. These shaping factors often overlap. Learning profile influences efficiency of learning.

Among the theoretical underpinnings of differentiation in response to student learning profile are these principles and the theorists who propose them:

• Various classroom features, including environmental, emotional, sociological, and physical features, can influence both student attitude about learning and learning itself (Dunn, 1996).
• Students’ own neurological patterns—such as attention control, memory systems, language systems, sequential and spatial ordering systems, motor systems, higher-order thinking systems, and social thinking systems— affect how they learn. When a classroom is a mismatch for a student’s needs, that student is likely to struggle in school (Levine, 2002).
• Intelligence manifests itself in a variety of spheres. Even though these manifestations are fluid rather than fixed, there is benefit to addressing a learner’s intelligence preferences in instruction (Gardner, 1983; Sternberg, 1985).
• A person’s gender can influence the way that person sees and interacts with the world—including the classroom. Although generalizing to a particular gender is not appropriate, there are likely some female-preferred learning patterns and some male-preferred learning patterns (Gilligan, 1982; Gurian, 2001; Tannen, 1990).
• A person’s culture shapes his or her perspectives, points of view, frames of reference, modes of communication, sense of identity, and cognitive style. Although any culture demonstrates great variance, and it is not appropriate to generalize to a culture, classrooms that favor cultural patterns of one group and are inhospitable to those of other groups are likely to have negative effects on the learning of students from the non-favored groups (Banks, 1993, 1994; Delpit, 1995; Lasley & Matczynski, 1997). Particular classrooms may also be more beneficial to students from some economic classes than from others (Garcia, 1995). It is important for classrooms to provide a range of materials, processes, and procedures for learning so that students from many backgrounds find them comfortable and effective places to learn (Educational Research Service, 2003).

Among research findings that suggest the importance of addressing students’ learning profile needs in the classroom are the following:

• A meta-analysis of research on the effects of learning style accommodation in the classroom found significant attitude and achievement gains for students from a range of cultural groups (Sullivan, 1993).
• Dunn and Griggs (1995) report positive learning effects through addressing students’ learning profiles for elementary students, secondary students, students with emotional difficulties, and students with learning disabilities—as well as for Native American, Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Caucasian students.
• When students’ cultural differences are ignored or misunderstood in the classroom, the academic success of students from many minority groups is likely to be undermined (Delpit, 1995).
• Students at the primary, elementary, middle, and high school levels have achieved significantly better than peers in control groups when classroom instruction was matched to their preferred learning patterns (e.g., analytical, creative, or practical). This proved to be the case even when students were taught through their preferences and tested conventionally (Grigorenko & Sternberg, 1997; Sternberg, 1997; Sternberg, Torff, & Grigorenko, 1998).

Some Learning Profile Assumptions:

• It is possible to identify a student’s learning preferences for learning environment .
• It is possible to use and to modify a variety of instructional practices to match student preferences.
• Students will learn better when using preferences in which they're successful.
• Students will be better learners when they can expand their preferences.
• Students who match their teacher’s learning style (or can more easily accommodate it?) are probably the most successful.
• Students who refuse to (or can’t?) adapt their learning style to accommodate different styles may sometimes end up being labeled as LD.
• All teachers should use a variety of methods.

Some challenges associated with developing learning profiles are:

• Learners change over time, and what they strongly identify with at one stage of development may not persist.
• The instruments used to “measure” these preferences have not been uniformly accepted in the field.
• The measurement tools are either non-existent (in most school systems) or, where present, inconsistently understood or applied. They can be time-consuming to implement.
• The tools can tend to lead to interpretations that indicate learning styles are like fixed capacities that limit students and require teachers to focus on variables that are beyond their control.

That said, there are some very good reasons to invest time and develop expertise in helping students develop awareness of their overall learning profile:

1. If based on self-report and observation, learning style profiles help both student and teacher form powerful conclusions about how students might likely respond to a wide range of stimuli (i.e., probabilities involved).
2.   The profiles are helpful in a “whatever it takes” classroom setting, in contrast to a one-size-fits-all classroom, because the assumption is that a range of learning opportunities will be offered and will touch on these tendencies/probabilities. This would rarely be the case in a traditional classroom.
3.   Advancements in the areas of brain research, gender-based preferences and socialization, and cultural and combined preferences exist that were not available to educators even 20 years ago. To ignore the newest research and opportunities is to miss application opportunities now and ongoing application for students.
4. It is safe to assume the validity of what students self-report because there does not appear to be any advantage for a learner in investing time/energy in creating a false profile. In other words, if a student indicates a strong preference for working under certain conditions and maintains this approach consistently, then it passes the test for coherence.  However, if it sets the student at a disadvantage for certain circumstances, the teacher will want to help the student develop adaptive skills to successfully approach the circumstances that are challenging for him or her (test for correspondence).