# MBTI and the Future of Education



## thekang (Aug 21, 2013)

It's pretty common knowledge that there are different learning styles for different people. In my experience, I've found that MBTI seems to be a tool that has the ability to break down how an individual interacts and processes the world around them. It also serves as a great tool to indicate where your strengths and weaknesses may lie and what contributions to society that you can make. 

With the rise of the internet, education as we know it seems to be changing. There are a lot of online courses(ie. The Khan Academy or Coursea) that are available online for free to anyone with an internet connection. There's also a trend towards "Flipping the Classroom" which allows for education at a more self paced rate. Data tracking and analytics allow us to learn what's working with particular students and what an individual may be struggling with. Technology is allowing us to generalize less and cater more specific solutions to problems (in this case, education). 

Why don't we continue this trend, applying what we know about MBTI to the education process? Personality testing is already used and seems to be pretty reliable for dating websites. Why can't it be used to match people to a specific style of learning that they will be able to accelerate and excel at? An education that recognizes their weaknesses as well as their strengths and pushes them both forward? 

Any thoughts? Are there any examples out there that I may not be aware of? I'd love to hear.


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## Razare (Apr 21, 2009)

Gearing too much to the individual seems a little dangerous since society and the real world does not function that way.

I think equipping students to accommodate their own learning style is more appropriate.

Figure out how they learn, and then teach them what they need to do in order to learn the material.

That way, it works just like it works in college or a job. They're given an assignment, and the instructor / boss may be terrible at presenting the information in a way they can understand, but they still come through with success because they know how to make themselves learn.


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## Eleventeenth (Aug 24, 2011)

Reminds me a bit of the current movement towards personalized medicine.


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## Nahin Mamun (Jun 1, 2014)

I used to take Business Communication courses at uni before starting the PhD and I have tried to introduce MBTI in the course to improve communication skills amongst students. The problems I have found was lack of time to discuss the whole concept within a small time frame. Students expect relevant topic and discussion at an appropriate depth. This is only possible if the course is on personality traits. Other courses do not have enough room to discuss about MBTI. Even if you lecture 30 minutes on it, it is not sufficient time to grasp all the personality types. However, my students enjoyed the discussions. Another aspect I have noticed is that if a person is not communicating, it can be that the person is introvert or the culture does not allow free speech. If someone is coming from a background where there is a lack of personal liberty, it is difficult to determine what is behind the non-participation. I am interested to hear from others about their experiences on MBTI in education. This is a good thread.


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## thekang (Aug 21, 2013)

Razare said:


> Gearing too much to the individual seems a little dangerous since society and the real world does not function that way.
> 
> I think equipping students to accommodate their own learning style is more appropriate.
> 
> ...


 @_Razare_, thanks for your comments. I think the real world doesn't function that way because generalizations have to be used to as a means of efficiency. This website might help change(in a very small way) the real world to cater towards individualization. I know that there are actually more trends towards specialization and independent freelancing at least in some industries now because technology has allowed people to become more "findable" and connect us together. I definitely think that part of the goal of the website should be to educate people about their own learning styles. Learning to communicate and empathize with other people would still be important to focus on as well. 



Eleventeenth said:


> Reminds me a bit of the current movement towards personalized medicine.


 @Eleventeenth Definitely. The idea is influenced by the same line of thought.



Nahin Mamun said:


> I used to take Business Communication courses at uni before starting the PhD and I have tried to introduce MBTI in the course to improve communication skills amongst students. The problems I have found was lack of time to discuss the whole concept within a small time frame. Students expect relevant topic and discussion at an appropriate depth. This is only possible if the course is on personality traits. Other courses do not have enough room to discuss about MBTI. Even if you lecture 30 minutes on it, it is not sufficient time to grasp all the personality types. However, my students enjoyed the discussions. Another aspect I have noticed is that if a person is not communicating, it can be that the person is introvert or the culture does not allow free speech. If someone is coming from a background where there is a lack of personal liberty, it is difficult to determine what is behind the non-participation. I am interested to hear from others about their experiences on MBTI in education. This is a good thread.


@Nahin Mamun This is why I think that a website would be great solution. It allows for people to soak in information at their own pace, bypassing the limits with time. Although I didn't think too much about the discussion aspect of the website, the web is also a relatively safe place for people to post and discuss ideas without fear of rejection or need to worry. 


I may make this a pet project of mine and try to glean more information on learning styles connected to MBTI. If you guys have any resources, feel free to share. I'd love to take a look at them.


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

Awareness of MBTI has certainly given me an awareness of the many styles of doing things in all sorts of areas in life.

Even if MBTI has questionable theories (I know some people don't like it), it at least raises an awareness of the differences in ways people think and do things.

So yeah, MBTI, or something quite like it, would be very well placed in the educational system.

For example I'm one of those INTP types who fucking hates public speaking but is absolutely boss at reports and essays. I would love to be assessed on the things I _know_ I'm good at, rather than be obliged to do the things I hate (such as presentations... ugh). Maybe MBTI classifications of students would help.

One negative point, however, is that we'd end up with social profiling and streaming of people into things, and certainly in the educational ranks we'd end up with a sort of intellectual class system. And, in example, if people are mistyped they may end up being considered inferior and not allowed to take up academic positions that they actually had a capability of holding.

A futurist might say we could end up with a world like that portrayed in the film Gattaca.


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## Red_Setting_Sun (Jun 20, 2013)

People have already started doing this. I came over this book in the Announcement section that addresses it. It's written by a med school professor for his students. He doesn't really go far enough, in my opinion, as he doesn't use the functions, but the N vs. S dichotomy in stead, mostly. Still, there are some great tips here. I'd check it out.

http://personalitycafe.com/articles...es-advice-how-improve-med-school-example.html


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## nonnaci (Sep 25, 2011)

There is also the issue that certain forms of knowledge are more difficult to grasp under learning style different from how they were conceived at their inception/origin. For example, much of pure mathematics is structural-conceptual and those without the Ti-Ne combination and an appreciation of the nuances of language have to jump to all sorts of hoops in order to even form a mental representation of a couple percepts. Maybe this deficiency in "knowledge translation" by learning styles is motivation to develop new representations of knowledge, which is to say that there may be future demand in such an industry, particullary online, or through future forms of virtual reality.


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## BlackMoonlight (Oct 16, 2012)

At my college the MBTI is used and I've had two teachers hand out tests in order to put students in groups. I've also taken the test for job applications but I'll rant about that some other time. I don't believe the MBTI should be used in the context of education since it isn't an accurate measure of a person's personality let alone their strengths and weaknesses academically. After taking the test many, many times, I ended up with many different results. I think this is pretty common and that's why the reliability of the MBTI has been called into question. With such varied results, I wouldn't want my potential employers or teachers coming to any conclusions about my capabilities based on the MBTI.


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