Teaching approaches and student learning: Personality type and design studio

Abstract

The design studio is a learning environment with a strong focus on one-to-one critique and individual feedback from tutors. This instruction and learning mode is a useful forum in which to consider tailoring approaches to teaching delivery based upon an assessment of learning preferences. The investigation reviews the two key personality assessment instruments identified by the literature review: the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Personality Inventory Revised (NEO-PI-R). The report concludes that the MBTI is the best option partly because there are no 'better' or 'worse' types in the MBTI, unlike the NEO-PI-R which as a trait-based instrument has at its core an in-built judgement about the relative value of some attributes.

This report has been structured in two parts: Part One, which reviews the arguments for and against the notion of learning styles and suggests that personality type might be a more useful avenue to explore in regard to improving student learning outcomes; and Part Two, which comprises the findings from a literature review on design education, learning styles, and creativity and design thinking in studio as a series of tables, including a detailed commentary about each article considered. Key ideas from the literature review have been assembled as a series of diagrams, or 'mind-maps' in Part Two of the report.

Each part of the report concludes with a list of references cited, and other resources which may be useful to this area of study.