The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

THE MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR
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One of the best-known and most widely used personality inventories that can also be used to describe learning styles is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).1 While the VARK Inventory measures your preferences for using your senses to learn, the MBTI examines basic personality characteristics and how those relate to human interaction and learning. The MBTI was created by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs. The inventory identifies and measures psychological types and is given to several million people around the world each year. Employers often give this inventory to employees to get a better understanding of how they perceive the world, make decisions, and get along with other people.

All the psychological types described by the MBTI are normal and healthy. There is no good or bad or right or wrong; people are simply different. When you complete the MBTI, your score represents your “psychological type” or the combination of your preferences on four different scales. These scales measure how you take in information and how you then make decisions or come to conclusions about that information. Based on these scales, you can be one of these types:

Extravert OR Introvert
directing your energy and attention toward the outer world of people, events, and things. directing your energy and attention toward the inner world of thoughts, feelings, and reflections.
Sensing Type OR Intuitive Type
perceiving the world and taking in information directly, through your five senses. perceiving the world and taking in information indirectly, by using your intuition.
Thinking Type OR Feeling Type
making your decisions through logical, rational analysis. making your decisions through your personal values, likes, and dislikes.
Judging Type OR Perceiving Type
approaching the outside world by making decisions and judgments. approaching the outside world by observing and perceiving.

To learn more about these personality types and to access a questionnaire to find out more about your type, visit the Myers & Briggs Foundation at myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/take-the-mbti-instrument/.

Because each of the four different preferences has two possible choices, sixteen psychological types are possible. No matter what your Myers-Briggs type is, all components of personality have value in the learning process. The key to success, therefore, is to use all the attitudes and functions in their most positive sense. As you go about your studies, we recommend the following:

  1. Extraversion: Take action. Now that you have a plan, act on it. Do whatever it takes. Create note cards, study outlines, study groups, and so on. If you are working on a paper, now is the time to start writing.
  2. Introversion: Think it through. Before you take any action, carefully review everything you have encountered so far.
  3. Sensing: Get the facts. Use sensing to find and learn the facts. How do we know facts when we see them? What is the evidence for what is being said?
  4. Intuition: Get the ideas. Now use intuition to consider what those facts mean. Why are those facts being presented? What concepts and ideas are being supported by those facts? What are the implications? What is the big picture?
  5. Thinking: Critically analyze. Use thinking to analyze the pros and cons of what is being presented. Are there gaps in the evidence? What more do we need to know? Do the facts really support the conclusions? Are there alternative explanations? How well does what is presented hang together logically? How could our knowledge of it be improved?
  6. Feeling: Make informed value judgments. Why is this material important? What does it contribute to people’s good? Why might it be important to you personally? What is your personal opinion about it?
  7. Judging: Organize and plan. Don’t just dive in! Now is the time to organize and plan your studying so that you will learn and remember everything you need to know. Don’t just plan in your head, either; write your plan down, in detail.
  8. Perceiving: Change your plan as needed. Be flexible enough to change something that isn’t working. Expect the unexpected and deal with the unforeseen. Don’t give up the whole effort the minute your original plan stops working. Figure out what’s wrong, come up with another, better plan, and start following that.2
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Take a Time-out
Do you find that you need some occasional time by yourself? Although introverts are more likely to enjoy time alone, even extraverts can benefit from private time to relax or escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life.