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Understanding Yourself as a Learner 97

experiences and are enthusiastic about anything new. You tend to
act first and think later. You love being active and no sooner are you
given a problem than you have begun to brainstorm solutions to it.
You are probably gregarious by nature.
Your motto is: “I’ll try anything once.”
If you are a reflector, you tend to stand back from experiences,
In meetings you probably take a back seat. You like to absorb a
range of data before coming to any decision. You prefer to see the
way things are going before offering an opinion of your own. You
are probably cautious by nature.
Your motto is: “I’ll need to think about that one.”
If you are a theorist, you tend to think things through in a log-
ical sequence until you can make it fit into a pattern. You like mod-
els, systems, and rules. You enjoy being detached and analytical.
You can be a useful rigorous thinker and someone who will not
budge from an opinion just because it does not fit your worldview.
Your motto is: “But how does it fit in with…”
If you are a pragmatist, you are always keen to try out ideas.
You are always experimenting. You want to get on with things and
not sit about talking. Once you have heard something interesting,
you want to test it out straight away.
Your motto is: “There must be a better way.”

Were you right in your first impressions of your learning style? Did you conclude, as many
people do, that there were elements of two or three types in the way you operate? You can
carry out a more detailed analysis of your preferred learning style by filling in a self-
assessment questionnaire from Peter Honey Learning, see pages 258 and 259.

LEARNING STYLES AND INFORMATION PREFERENCES

It is possible to be a quiet activist and a noisy reflector. These cat-
egories do not allow you to denote the degree of emotional involve-
ment you have as a learner. Neither do they distinguish between the
absolutely key variations in the way you take in data: through your
eyes and your ears and by using your body, which we explored ear-
lier in this chapter. So, for example, you can be a theorist with a