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One Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words?
Not Necessarily!
Who Can Use Edmonds Learning Style Identification Exercise (ELSIE?)
Jump to Appendix: References and Notes
Several clichés concerning the nature of learning are universally accepted with such assurance that major features of our educational system are based on them: when "one picture is worth a thousand words" is combined with its modern corollary "this is the TV generation, so kids need lots of visual stimuli," we have expansive and sophisticated multimedia materials in most subject-matter areas; since "one learns by doing," almost every area of the curriculum attempts to incorporate some laboratory element. Investigation into individual learning styles which has been carried on in the Edmonds School District in recent years indicates that whereas each of the above approaches is exactly right for some students, no one approach will be equally effective for every student.
Our interest in identifying the way in which the individual student best learns was a direct result of the individualized foreign language program developed in Edmonds School District in 1969. (1) As the operational mechanics of the program became increasingly refined, it also became apparent that the truly individualized program needs to be prescriptive, i.e., the teacher must be able to recommend to the individual student which study techniques should be most effective for him.
Foreign language teachers have at their disposal all the tools necessary to tailor programs for greatest effectiveness for individual students, but lack of specific information about what will be most effective for an individual student leaves the teacher in the position of using a shotgun approach, i.e., the material is broadcast in various ways and the student is left to pick out what he can. To overcome this problem and thus enable the teacher to individualize the program more effectively, the teacher must have an instrument which is simple to administer and to interpret and which can yield information concerning individual student differences very early in the first year. These were the criteria used in developing the Edmonds Learning Style Identification Exercise (ELSIE), which the classroom teacher can administer, score, and roughly evaluate in less than a half-hour of class time.
This exercise operates on the hypothesis that each individual is "programmed" to learn most efficiently in certain ways and less efficiently in others, which is but a further extension of the basic concept of individualized instruction that individuals differ from one another. If this concept of programming appears strange, it is not so far removed from other notions which we readily accept, e.g., we all admit to something which we call "talent" or "aptitude" or a "flair for" a particular subject or skill . Some persons have a talent for music or art or writing, some have an aptitude for math or languages, others have a flair for mechanics or are labeled "natural" athletes. Whenever we speak this way, we should recognize that we are speaking of some kind of neurological programming: real talent or aptitude is the result of certain synapses operating more quickly or certain nerve pathways being more readily available in some persons than in others.
Each normal individual can learn practically any skill at a basic level, but genuine aptitude cannot be learned -- it can only be developed. Recent discoveries regarding the predominant functions of the separate hemispheres of the brain make this approach even more plausible. For example, since the language center is located roughly above the ear in the left brain and the music and pattern recognition functions is each handled predominantly by the right brain, there is no necessary connection between being able to visualize or being able to sing and being able to learn a foreign language. (2) But it is not beyond the realm of possibility that an individual's learning style might be directly related to which hemisphere and which area of which hemisphere is most highly developed for that individual.
"Learning style" is used here analogously to what is commonly meant by "aptitude" or "talent." An individual's learning style is the way in which that person is programmed to learn most effectively, i.e., to receive, understand, remember, and be able to use new information. We have of course for years heard reference to eye-minded and ear-minded persons, but very little has been done in trying to identify such individuals or in developing curricula based on such differences. (Such curricula would naturally be truly individualized. ) Rather than the somewhat loose traditional dichotomy, we have through ELSIE identified four major avenues for internalizing new information, and the specific combinations of these four are as varied as the individuals themselves. In fact, the diversity between individuals now appears to be so much greater than has generally been recognized that one begins to suspect that many slow learners are "slow" only because they have never had a chance to learn in the way in which they could have learned.
The second hypothesis on which ELSIE is based is that one's pattern of internalization of his native language gives a profile of his learning style. No other non-motor skill is learned so early in life or mastered so thoroughly, whatever may be the individual's other intellectual capacities, as the words of his native tongue. When we discover that patterns of internalization of individual words are practically completely unique to that individual, regardless of age or educational level, this tends to confirm the hypothesis that this technique of internalizing individual words is the result of the programming of that person and not the result of training.
Operating on these hypotheses, ELSIE provides a profile of an individual's learning style according to patterns of responses to common English words. Since the native tongue is always learned in its oral form prior to the written form and thus with the spoken language we have a better chance of getting at the fundamental programming of the individual, the words in the exercise are always read aloud to the participants rather than being presented in writing. When the first study was conducted five years ago, several groups of students were asked to write out their instantaneous response to each item on a list of randomly selected words. Analysis of these open-ended responses made it clear that each fell into one of only four categories, i.e., upon hearing a given word, the person initially will either:
- have a mental image of an object or activity,
- have a mental image of the word spelled -out,
- receive meaning from the sound of the word without any visualization, or
- have a fleeting kinesthetic reaction, either emotional or physical.
Since this list appears to be exhaustive, on all subsequent phases of this study the participants have been provided with printed answer sheets on which they need only circle the appropriate number to record their response to each word.
In a subsequent study, a list of eighty words was selected. Criteria for word selection were that each word should be so commonly used that the subject would not need to hesitate to seek a meaning; each should be as short as possible, preferably monosyllabic, to reduce the time required to pronounce each word; and each word should be easily enunciated to avoid possible confusion when the words were read aloud. Representative words from different parts of speech were included, and an attempt was made to combine concrete and abstract words, although this leads to difficulties which will be discussed later. Several words also were included which could be interpreted more than one way, e.g., read (past tense of read) which could be heard as red. The eighty words were placed in the list in a perfectly random order to avoid subconscious patterns being manifested in the makeup of the list.
Along with an introductory explanation of the purpose of the exercise, the eighty words were read onto tape, so the exercise could be repeated with as few extraneous variables as possible. A total of 280 subjects from several schools in the greater Seattle area took the exercise on two occasions at an interval of approximately two months. An item analysis was conducted comparing the performance of each individual on the two occasions as well as tallying total responses for various subgroups. Results of this analysis yielded some interesting observations:
- An individual's overall profile of response remains consistent, although his response to some individual items may vary. A particular individual will normally have the same response to one-third to two-thirds of the items if he takes the exercise on two occasions. Identical responses on more than 65-70 percent or on less than 30-35 percent of the items is unusual. Although one might speculate on the significance of those cases which fall in the extreme ranges, so far there has not been a sufficient number of instances to verify any given interpretation.
- Several participants said that they found they could not really force a predetermined response, e.g., if the participant decided that on the next item he would visualize the spelling of the word, he might nevertheless first of all have a mental image of an object. The consistency of patterns of responses and the relative autonomy of the initial response seem to indicate that with this exercise we are getting at something that lies below the level of learned behavior.
- The one area in which there was a significant difference between the responses of males and females was that females indicated a kinesthetic response for more than 25 percent of the words, whereas males had a kinesthetic response in only about 17.5 percent of the cases. For the other areas, the responses varied no more than 2 percent between these two groups.
From the original list of eighty words, a revised list of fifty was selected. These fifty were the most discriminating of the original eighty, i.e., in this list are the four or five which had the highest and lowest response in each of the four categories, most of the words which had the highest percentage of identical responses on both administrations, and a few which had particularly interesting patterns of response, e.g., a word for which two categories were very high and the other two categories were correspondingly low. This revised exercise was administered one time each to nearly 1,000 individuals at grade levels ranging from junior high school to graduate school. Item analysis of these test sheets showed only slight variations from the results obtained previously with the eighty-word list, i.e., the exact percentage of responses for each category on each item varied slightly between the two versions, but the overall pattern of response for each item was consistent. This consistency tends to substantiate further the reliability of the exercise, whereas the wide divergence of individuals from these norms underscores the diversity of individual learning styles.
In the revised version, ELSIE has the following introduction:
This exercise is designed to identify how individuals learn most easily and most efficiently. This is not a test, for there are no right or wrong answers.
In this exercise you will hear a total of fifty single English words. Each word is a common word which you should be familiar with. As you hear each word, observe your own immediate reaction-notice what goes on inside your head. Most probably for each word you will have one of four responses: either (1) you will see a picture of some object or activity, or (2) you will picture in your mind the word spelled out, or (3) you will have no mental image but will only hear the sound of the word, or (4) you may have some physical or emotional feeling about the word, such as a tightening of a muscle or a feeling such as warmth, sorrow, etc. Remember that this is not a test of word association-- it is not important which other word or what picture you might think of, but only the nature of your own immediate and instantaneous reaction to the word itself.
On your answer sheet circle the number in the appropriate column for your own response to each word. Each word will be read only one time, since the important answer is your immediate response when you first hear the word, not what you think of after you have thought about it for a few seconds or have heard the word a second time.
Here is an example. Suppose you hear hold. One person might first of all see the hold of a ship or see one wrestler holding another. In this case he would circle number one. Notice that it does not matter what the visual image is, only that the word immediately brings to mind some visual image. Another person might see the word h-o-l-d spelled out. He would circle number two. A third person might have no visual image at all, but simply hears the word and understands its meaning from the sound alone. He would circle number three. Finally, still another person might just for an instant feel a tensing of his arm muscles as if he were holding an object, or he might feel as if someone were holding him. In either case, he would circle number four.
Obviously you are hearing each word. So you will circle number three only if you have no visual image or feeling about the word. Sometimes two different responses will occur together. Try to get the first one if you can. But never mark more than one response. If you have a feeling combined with any kind of visualization, circle number four.
Let's try a few words as samples. Do not mark your sheet for these. First: sink. (Pause) Did you see a kitchen sink or a ship sinking in the water or a truck with its wheels sinking in the mud? If you had any such image, you would circle number one. Or did you see s-i-n-k spelled out in your mind's eye? If so, you would have circled number two If you saw no visual image, then you would have circled number three Or did you just for a moment have that sinking feeling in your stomach that you get on an elevator going down fast? If so, you would circle number four. See how it works? Let's try another word for practice: meat. This word could either have been a noun -- like a roast or hamburger -- or a verb, as to be introduced to someone. No matter which meaning may have struck you first, if you had a mental image -- for example, of a roast, or a cow, or two people shaking hands you would have circled number one. If you saw either word spelled out either m-e-a-t or m-e-e-t -- then you would have circled number two. Again, whatever meaning you attached to the word, if you did not have a visual image, you would circle three. Or if you felt like chewing or shaking hands or anything like that, then you would have marked number four. Let's try one more, then we will begin the exercise: home. What happened? Did you see a house, then you would circle number one. Did you see the word spelled out, then you would circle number two Did you hear the word but didn't see anything and didn't feel anything, then you would circle number three. Or, if the sound of the word perhaps just for an instant gave you a warm feeling, or you felt more secure for a moment, or anything of this sort, you would mark number four.
OK. Now, let's begin. (3)
Following this introduction, each of the fifty words is read one time at ten-second intervals:
1. pool 2. tall 3. summer 4. long 5. house 6. guilty 7. chicken 8. strange 9. liar! 10. beautiful 11. grass 12. hope 13. yellow 14. fear 15. five 16. God 17. read 18. foot 19. justice 20. baby 21. enemy 22. bag 23. shame 24. street 25. truth 26. story 27. happy 28. ground 29. hate 30. talk 31. ocean 32. good 33. paint 34. down 35. freedom 36. letter 37. think 38. love 39. running 40. ugly 41. law 42. angry 43. friend 44. paper 45. warm 46. above 47. kill 48. swim 49. hungry 50. bad From this list, the items which had the highest and lowest percentage of responses in each of the four categories are: (4)
Category High Low 1. (Visualization) 1, 20, 24, 31, 48 12, 14, 23, 25, 29, 32 2. (Spelling) 4, 15, 32, 41 7, 20, 31, 39, 48 3. (Sound) 8, 19, 25, 37, 41 1, 20, 31, 48 4. (Feeling) 27, 29, 38, 45, 49 15, 22, 24, 28, 44 Noting the degree of variation of the individual's responses from these high and low items in each category could be significant. For instance, if the participant marked 2 on several of high items in category 1, we might conclude that even in those instances when most people see a visual image, this person sees words spelled out. Furthermore, the responses on items 10, 34, 40, and 47 were so nearly balanced for all four categories that a strong preference by an individual for one particular response on as many as three of these four would probably be additionally significant.
Mention was made earlier of the difficulty of distinguishing concrete and abstract terms. Until one has become involved in the possible variations of modes of internalizing words, the matter seems simple. For instance, one would expect that the term chicken would immediately evoke a mental image indeed, it was entered in the list for that purpose. Yet 12.46 percent of the responses for this term were kinesthetic, a larger percentage than given to such terms as baby and ocean, and only 0.05 percent fewer than running, which was originally included in the list with the intention of stimulating a kinesthetic response. But we must remember that in colloquial speech such terms as chicken, yellow, and grass have other than their historically sanctioned meanings.
One of the clearest insights provided by ELSIE so far has been that we must avoid prejudging that a certain response or pattern of responses will be true for everyone. The most common remark made by participants when they were discussing their responses to specific items has been "I had a response X, of course." All the results so far indicate that there is no "of course" involved here, for the expression indicates that each person's individual response seems so natural to him that he assumes that "of course" everyone else has the same result. The unfortunate consequence of this is that since the teacher assumes that what worked for him will work equally well for everyone, the teacher generally requires his students to engage in the kinds of learning activities which that teacher has found effective when he was a student. Thus, the teacher who found that writing out vocabulary words three times helped him learn a list of new vocabulary will often require each of his students to do the same thing. For some students this will be quite effective, but for others it is a total waste of the individual's time and effort. ELSIE is designed to help the teacher avoid these kinds of pedagogical mistakes.
Interpretation of the meaning of the raw scores on the exercise is still the most tentative area within this study. Since the whole field of learning style analysis is only now being developed by a few individuals in the country, (5) results cannot yet be validated by reference to other previously standardized instruments. The interpretations offered here are based on empirical norms combined with personal observations of student behavior as well as several hundred personal interviews with students in an attempt to correlate the profiles with actual student performance.
The learning style profile itself is provided by a chart on which the student can plot his raw scores. On the bottom of the answer sheet are four blanks where the student can tally his total responses for each of the four categories. On the profile sheet,
(Figure 1) he places a dot under each heading at the appropriate spot according to the limits presented for each band. When the four dots on the chart are joined with straight lines, this yields a graph. The profile chart is divided as a stanine scale, the limits for each band based on the norms derived from analysis of the 909 persons who most recently participated in the study. Since the information of greatest interest presumably will be the degree of variation from the mean, the median band is labeled zero and scores are arranged in four bands above and below the median. The empirically established limits for the bands in the four categories are:
----- 1 2 3 4 Band Visualization Written Word Listening Activity +4 39-50 21-50 23-50 27-50 +3 35-38 18-20 18-22 21-26 +2 30-34 16-17 16-17 17-20 +1 20-29 14-15 14-15 13-16 0 12-19 9-13 9-13 6-12 -1 7-11 7-8 7-8 3-5 -2 4-6 5-6 5-6 2 -3 2-3 3-4 3-4 1 -4 0-1 0-2 0-2 0 Since this exercise is not designed for a high degree of precise detail, raw scores should always be converted to bands and interpretation made in terms of bands rather than in terms of raw scores. As mentioned earlier, raw scores for an individual may vary slightly on different administrations of the exercise, but the profile, i.e., the bands, tends to remain consistent. And although even a fairly small sampling of scores will tend to average out according to this scale, very seldom will we find a particular individual who stays within the median range (0 band) in all four categories. (6) Indeed any four or five profile sheets selected at random from a class of students will clearly show the wide diversity of our students. A number of siblings have participated in this study, including a few sets of twins, and there is as great a diversity between siblings as between any other two persons selected at random. When one looks at these scores, one begins to realize that when we "teach to the middle," we miss just about everyone in class by varying degrees.
The basic assumption we make in interpreting these profiles is that the further the individual varies from the mean in any one of the four categories, the stronger or weaker will be that mode of learning for that individual, i.e., the more (or less) easily the individual is able to learn by using that approach. Scores at the extremes (either in the + 3 or + 4 band) may be considered indicative of a strongly dominant influence- positively or negatively-of that mode. A score falling in the +4 range, for example, tends to indicate that the person must in some way translate information received from other modes into that category before successful learning will occur, e.g., if a person has a + 4 score in listening, he probably will sound words to himself as he reads (since this converts the words into a more readily "digestible" form), and when watching a film he will learn more from the dialog than from the pictures themselves. Conversely, a -4 score in listening would indicate that when that individual attends a lecture, he would feel compelled to engage in some other activity in order to remember what was said, e.g., taking copious notes, converting the words of the speaker into visual images, etc.
As general guidelines for interpreting the scores in individual categories, we might assume the following:
- Visualization. This category indicates the relative importance to the learner of actually seeing objects and activities in order for him to learn.
- Written Word. This category is distinguished from the first by noting whether a person will get more detail from a certain incident by seeing the event occur (visualization) or by reading a description of the event (written word). Persons scoring very high in this category have a great dependence on the written word, and for such students the prereading unit of traditional audiolingualism was highly frustrating. Persons scoring very low in this category may read quite well, but they tend to translate written words into another category (visual images or sounds) rather than being able to get meaning from the words immediately.
- Listening. This category indicates the degree to which the person is able to learn from hearing the spoken language without recourse to some other mode. Persons scoring very high in this category will find tapes an invaluable aid in learning a foreign language. Those scoring very low will probably need to do remedial work in learning to understand the spoken language.
- Activity. This category represents the relative importance of some manner of physical activity to the learning process. A person scoring above the median band in this category will find it a definite advantage to become physically active in some way in order to facilitate learning. Such activities can be as simple as taking notes or writing out exercises, and one participant while denying that this interpretation applied to her-said that when she needed to memorize something, she always paced the floor. Persons scoring fairly high in this category are usually compulsive note takers in class or at lectures (and even films), but they will seldom need to refer to their notes at a later time, for the activity of writing seems to impress the information on their memory.
The most critical factor in interpreting the profile, however, is to evaluate the scores on all four categories in relation to one another and not in isolation. Remembering that scores falling into the 0 or + 1 range are very close to the norm, we may assume that the individual is able to operate effectively in categories where he has such scores, i.e., material presented in these modes will be neither excessively difficult nor automatically imprinted in his memory. Since the fourth category (activity) is primarily supplementary a score in the + 2 band or above requires that scores in the other bands be read approximately one band higher than they appear on the chart. For example, if a person has - 1 in visualization, 0 in written word, - 3 in listening, and - 3 in activity, this would indicate that the could learn effectively either by seeing pictures or by reading, but it would be very important for him to be physically involved, perhaps by underlining passages in a book or taking notes by drawing his own versions of pictures he sees, by participating in skits, etc. For remedial work in the listening area, it would be critical for him to repeat each line of dialog which he hears on tape.
Although possible interpretations suggest some fascinating topics for study, the purpose of this exercise is to provide practical help for the classroom teacher interested in providing more effective counseling for his students. The basic pedagogical principle proposed here is that the student should have his initial contact with new material by means of his most efficient learning style, and he might anticipate that he would need remedial work in those areas in which he operates less efficiently. For instance, if the result; show that the student has a fairly high dependence on the written word but is weak in listening. It would probably be most efficient for him to read new material before he listens to it on tape. To reverse this sequence is to compound the student's difficulties, i.e., to ask him to learn new material which itself has an element of difficulty -- by use of a learning style which for the particular student is inefficient is to force the student to waste his time. Use of the information from this exercise can also help clarify why two students may not be able to use the same approach with equally good results.
It should be noted here that there is no suggestion that because a student is weak in a certain mode he should ignore that area. Rather we are concerned only with the sequence in which his skills are developed. The fact that a student may be weak in learning through sounds does not excuse him from the need to learn to understand the spoken language. Each student is still expected to reach the goals of the program at the minimal acceptable level as defined by the program itself. But we may recognize that one student will need to listen to every tape five times in order to get his ear trained to understand the spoken language, whereas another might achieve the same level of performance with only one listening. And we may also resign ourselves to accept that a particular student will never become highly proficient in one or another skill, however hard he may try.
For the teacher in an individualized program, the information provided by this exercise makes it possible to give even the beginning student the kind of help which he needs. In programs which are not individualized, the information can also be valuable. First of all, it provides the teacher with a constant reminder that a variety of presentation techniques must be used. Furthermore, it begins to appear that an entire class has a unique profile, and this information can suggest to the teacher which kind of presentation should be most effective for the class as a whole. An index indicating the bias of the class in the individual categories can be obtained in this manner:
- Determine the band for each category for each student in the class.
- Determine the sum of the bands in each category for the class as a whole, i.e., add up the pluses and minuses within each category.
- Divide the sum in each category by the number of students in the class for the bias index.
Remembering that in a perfectly balanced class, the bias index would be 0, the variation from 0 will indicate how much the class on the average varies from the norm. Investigation in this area is still in the preliminary stages, but so far it appears that a variation of more than + 0.50 in the bias index is probably significant. The teaching assistant in charge of an accelerated beginning German class at the University of Colorado two summers ago was concerned because the class was not progressing as well as it should.
Class scores on ELSIE made clear what was the problem. The bias index in the visualization category was-0.67, in the written word category 0.29, in the listening category + 1.29, and in activity 1.10. The instructor had been using class time for drill work and occasional showing of the Guten Tag films, and the students were left to study the text on their own. The -0.67 in visualization casts doubt on the overall effectiveness of films for such a group, and the -1.10 in activity would indicate that drill work should be only remedial. The + 1.29 in listening combined with the 0.29 in the written word indicated that it was important for most members of the class (of course, there were exceptions!) to have structural material presented orally in class by the instructor.
When the instructor did begin devoting more class time to such oral explanations, the test grades began to improve. A similar explanation also seemed appropriate with a certain beginning French class at Edmonds High School, where the teacher was puzzled by the generally poor performance of the class. The class had a bias index of 0.95 in the written word category and a + 1.10 in listening, compared with two intermediate classes of successful French students where we found a bias index of + 0.20 in the written word and + 0.41 in listening. Here again a change in the teacher's method of presenting material brought about positive results.
Such situations should not be surprising, for many foreign language teachers are themselves very strongly word oriented, and however hard they try to make oral language important in their classrooms, they unconsciously fall back on the written word when they set program priorities. Although the sampling is far too small to be conclusive, a group of foreign language teachers participating in a summer workshop at the University of Colorado in 1974 had a bias index of 0.63 in visualization, + 1.44 in the written word, 0.88 in listening, and 0 in the activity category. Since in three of the four categories this group of foreign language teachers exceeded the + 0.50 variation suggested as significant, it is easy to see how such teachers would only with conscious effort be able really to take into account the very real differences of the students in their classrooms.
Apart from enabling the teacher to do a better job of counseling students, information from ELSIE can then also give the teacher feedback for his own use. On several occasions it has been possible, after a teacher read off the grades for a dozen students, to predict the grades for the remainder of the class by using patterns showing up in the learning style profiles. For instance, if one notes that students in the + 3 and + 4 bands in the written word category are getting A's and the students at the other end of the scale are generally barely passing the course, it is not difficult to see that the teacher's specific approach is designed for only one particular learning style. When the teacher becomes aware of this, it then becomes possible for him to offer a wider variety of opportunities for learning, whether he uses an individualized or a traditional approach
Whatever interpretations may eventually prove most valid for the results of this exercise, the study itself shows clearly that differences between individuals are far more extensive and much deeper than we have frequently imagined. This exercise delves into an area which has been virtually unexplored but which offers promise of new insights into the learning process. And these insights in turn may eventually provide for more effective teaching.
Appendix: Notes and References
ELSIE Materials
Jump back to the top of the article.
Notes and References
1. Harry Reinert, "Practical Guide to Individualization," The Modern Language Journal, March 1971, pp. 156-163.
2. I first learned of this area of research through the National Educational Television documentary, "The Brain," and from the lecture, "The Brain Mind Problem," delivered by Sir John Eccles at the University of Colorado on July 31, 197 4.
3. Harry Reinert, "Learning Style Analysis (Tape Script)," copyright 1974 by Edmonds School District No. 15, Lynnwood, Washington. Reprinted here by permission. Permission to reproduce and use these materials will be readily granted to any non-commercial user upon written request to the author.
4. Ibid.
5. Carol A. Hosenfeld, "Learning About Learning: Discovering Our Students' Strategies," presentation at ACTFL annual meeting, November 29, 1974; Rita Dunn and Kenneth Dunn, "Learning Style as a Criterion for Placement in Alternative Programs." Phi Delta Kappan, December, 1974. pp 275-278, and "Finding the Best Fit -- Learning Styles, Teaching Styles, NASSP Bulletin, October, 1975, pp 37-49. In addition to encouragement from the administration and staff of the Edmonds School District, in the development of ELSIE I have enjoyed the support and cooperation of Philip Baudin, Highline School District, Seattle; Anthony Papalia, State University of New York at Buffalo, Col. William Geffen, United States Air Force Academy; and Superintendent Robert G. Lutz and James Leavell, Macomb Intermediate School District, Mt. Clemens, Michigan. The Macomb Intermediate School District used a modified form of ELSIE in conjunction with other studies on fourth-grade pupils; the other persons used ELSIE with high school or university level students.
6. No more than fifteen to twenty "perfectly normal" (0 band in all four categories) individuals have been found in the combined samplings of approximately 1500 persons, so no definitive conclusions concerning such individuals can be drawn. However, so far it seems that such persons either absorb new information in whatever way it may be presented and are therefore outstanding students, or else they are unable to focus their attention on any one style and will consequently have the reputation for being somewhat "scatterbrained" and do very poorly.
Reprinted from THE MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL Vol. LX, No. 4, April, 1976
This article is an expanded, updated version of two earlier reports: "Identifying Student Learning Styles," delivered at the Pacific Northwest Council on Foreign Languages in Spokane, Washington, on April 20, 1974; and "Identifying the Learning Process of the Foreign Language Student," presented at the AATG session in Denver, Colorado, on November 29, 1974.
Permission to use ELSIE may be granted to any noncommercial user upon request.
Please write to Harry Reinert, 17429 95th Pl SW, Vashon, WA 98070-4902 for more information. Harry can also be reached via e-mail at: harryreinert@comcast.net
Originally posted 1997 by New Horizons
Copyright ©2006 Harry Reinert
Posted with permission
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