ABSTRACT
People learn in different ways. Some learn better orally, others visually. Some learn better by listening, others by being actively involved. Learning approach, as a critical individual-difference variable in human learning, has been widely investigated over the last three decades. However, the majority of the factors relating to learning approaches that have been studied are limited to such student characteristics as age, gender, socio- economic status, self-esteem, learning motivation, as well as to the teaching/learning contexts. Other factors that might also be pivotal for students’ learning approaches have barely received the attention that they deserve. Early in 1970, Biggs and his colleague (Biggs and Das 1973) tested associations between students’ learning approaches and their personality characteristics. More recently, two studies (Murray-Harvey 1994; Sadler- Smith 1997) were identified as examining the relationships between learning styles and learning approaches. In this chapter, we argue that continuing efforts should be made to identify the possible effects of other individual-difference variables upon learning approaches.
