Keefe Learning Style Profile – 1986

What we need to do is change the culture through better design.

~ Jake Orlowitz

James Keefe, the director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), organized the development of a learning style paradigm which became an essential tool in the measurement of learning styles. He based his work on a personality theory and called it the “General Operations Model.” Keefe defined learning styles as “information processing, that is, the story and retrieval of information” (p59). This model is the compilation of all cognitive, affective and environmental preferences that the learning possesses to assist in completing a learning task.

Keefe created his Learning Style Profile with fragments from Witkin’s Embedded Figures Test (1962), Edmonds Learning Style Identification Exercise – ELSIE (1976) and Dunn & Dunn’s Learning Style Inventory (1975). From the Embedded Figures Test, Keefe used the cognitive domain while Edmonds Learning Style Identification Exercise – ELSIE contributed the affective domain. Lastly, Dunn & Dunn’s Learning Style Inventory added the environmental component.

Analysis of Keefe’s Learning Style Profile provided insight into eight cognitive (information processing) elements including:

• spatial
• analytical
• sequential
• memory
• simultaneous processing
• discrimination
• verbal-spatial.

Six study preferences:

• mobility
• posture
• persistence
• sound
• afternoon study time
• lighting

Three perceptual responses:

• visual
• emotive
• auditory

Six instructional preferences:

• early morning time
• late morning time
• verbal risk
• manipulative
• grouping
• temperature

Sources:

Keefe, J. (1990). Developing a defensible learning style paradigm. Educational Leadership, 48(2), 57-61.

Wilson, V.A. (1998). Learning How They Learn: A Review of the Literature on Learning Styles. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED427017.pdf

By Tracy Atkinson

Tracy Atkinson, mother of six, lives in the Midwest with her husband and spirited long-haired miniature dachshunds. She is a teacher, having taught elementary school to higher education, holding degrees in elementary education and a master’s in higher education. Her passion is researching, studying and investigating the attributes related to self-directed learners and learning styles. She has published several titles, including MBTI Learning Styles: A Practical Approach, The Art of Learning Journals, Calais: The Annals of the Hidden, Lemosa: The Annals of the Hidden, Book Two, Rachel’s 8,   The Personal Pursuit of Perfection and Securing Your Tent. She is currently working on a non-fiction text exploring the attributes of self-directed learners: The Five Characteristics of Self-directed Learners. Check out her online courses at: Udemy, Teachable and Thinkific.