Student Learning Styles and Use of Study Techniques.

The Information Acquisition Preference Inventory was used to examine cognitive styles in relationship to students' use of study tasks and to assess subjects' preferred ways of learning and problem solving. The inventory, which has students rank words describing their own learning behavior, identifies four distinctive learning preference modes: concrete sequential (CS), concrete random (CR), abstract sequential (AS), and abstract random (AR). A study skills survey completed by 40 students enrolled in a college reading and study skills course indicated that the concrete sequential learner was predominant among the students sampled. Not only were 46% of the students exhibiting one learning preference (concrete sequential learners), but 79% of the double dominant learners had a CS mixture. As for study techniques, the greatest number of learners in all categories reported using personal schedules "sometimes," with the next largest number using schedules "almost always." Most students reported using the textbook study system "sometimes," and the Cornell note-taking method and mapping techniques "very little" or "never." Results also indicated that the concrete random learners used the study techniques somewhat more than did the other students. (Appendixes include the study skills survey and the Information Acquisition Preference Inventory.) (HOD)