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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).⁴ 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. You might have taken the MBTI in school or in the workplace, but if not, your college career center can give you more information about taking the inventory and determining your own Myers−Briggs type. You can also visit myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/take-the-mbti-instrument/.

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 the types shown in Table 4.2.

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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, use Table 4.3 for recommended strategies that can be helpful to you based on your characteristics and strengths.⁵ To be successful, take full advantage of the strategies that match your characteristics, but remember that you should also learn to use some study strategies that may not come to you naturally because doing so will lead to more success in college, career, and life in general.

What you can learn about yourself from taking the MBTI has the power to improve your learning and how you relate to others. Consider Tricia, who is a returning student at her college. Tricia has two small children and describes herself as a person who likes to “get right to the point.” Recently in her psychology class, Tricia’s instructor assigned her to a group that is supposed to do a group project on important psychologists. Tricia has been very frustrated by the experience of working with other students. She is doing more than her fair share of the work, and even worse, others in the group come up with “stupid” ideas. Tricia is losing patience, and she’s quite blunt when she speaks during group meetings—she’s much more interested in saying exactly what she thinks than in worrying about how her comments might make others feel. Other group members told her that she’s “mean” and “insensitive,” but Tricia wasn’t buying it. Only after taking the Myers−Briggs Type Inventory did Tricia discover that she’s a high “T” (a thinking type) and a low “P” (a perceiving type). That means she tends to be very logical and rational but lacks sensitivity to the feelings of others. What she learned about herself explained a great deal about her relationships not only with her classmates but also with others in her immediate family. In the end, she decided that even when she feels impatient, she needs to find a way to get her point across without hurting others’ feelings.

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