Incorporating Individual Differences Into the Science of Learning Commentary on Sternberg et al. (2008)

摘要

Sternberg, Grigorenko, and Zhang (2008, thisissue) make a valiant effort to reinvigorate the some whatdormant field of cognitive style by showing the implicationsof cognitive style for instruction and assessment. In sup-port of their call to differentiate instruction for differentkinds of learners, they summarize evidence showingthat people learn better from a broad instructional methodthat is sensitive to multiple cognitive styles than they dofrom a narrow instructional method that is mainly ad-dressed to one cognitive style. In support of their call forusing multiple measures of learning potential, they sum-marize evidence showing that learning outcomes are better predicted by multiple measures of learning potential thanby a single measure. In this commentary, I briefly examineSternberg et al.'s claim that cognitive styles matter forinstruction and assessment.