The Importance Of Inductive Learning

According to Lake Superior State University, approximately 65 percent of all people are visual learners. Despite research showing an overwhelming majority of visual learners, many classes are designed to better suit auditory learners with visual aids. How then are the five percent of people, who are dominantly kinesthetic learners, supposed to learn effectively in this kind of environment? It is important for students and instructors alike to know about learning styles, the research into the field, and why classes should be taught for all types of learners. How do people learn? All people in every part of the world learn something through one or several ways; visually, aurally, and/or kinesthetically. These are the core ways an individual

Most classes such as math and the sciences are taught deductively. This means the instructor of the class introduces the students to a new concept, such as multiplication or division in an elementary classroom, and then requires his/her students to use the new knowledge. The other style, inductively, is just the reverse. Inductive learning is done by first being thrown “into the gauntlet” so to speak. The students are given something to interpret such as a real world problem or data set and told to find the solution. After some time is given to allow the students to search for a solution, hints or the solution are given along with an explanation of how to derive the answer. The theory behind inductive learning is, “As the students attempt to analyze the data or scenario or solve the problem, they generate a need for facts, rules, procedures, and guiding principles, at which point they are either presented with the needed information or helped to discover it for themselves” (Michael, 1). To support these principles as to how people learn, there have been many studies and surveys developed that provide more information to students and teachers alike. For example, according to the University of Illinois Extension, “Only 10 percent of secondary students learn best auditorily, but 80 percent of instructional delivery is auditory.” Along with the statistical information of the group research, there

The test consists of 44 different questions with two available answers. Instead of focusing on just the four perceptual learning styles, this test also attempts to measure whether or not an individual is a sequential or global learner to give results that are even more specific. The overall results are broken down into active/reflective, sensual/intuitive, visual/verbal, and sequential/global (Soloman). While these results are similar to the VARK test, they are measured slightly differently so looking farther into what the results mean afterwards can be enlightening. This survey can be found at