The predictive power of psychological types for learning approaches among Chinese university students

Scant research investigated the relationships between learning approaches and personality traits in the Chinese educational contexts. Therefore, the present study investigated the relationship between the Big Four model of personality types (or in other words, psychological types) and learning approaches among Chinese university students. The participants were 217 students from a university in China. Psychological types and learning approaches were assessed by surveys. The results showed that deep learning approach positively related to sensing-intuition and negatively related to extraversion-introversion and thinking-feeling. Surface learning approach positively related to judgement-perception. Psychological types accounted for approximately 11 percent of the variance in deep learning approach and around 10 percent of the variance in surface learning approach, after controlling for gender and year of study. Moreover, learning approaches were related to gender, year of study, and parents’ education levels. The influence of sociocultural contexts on students’ learning approaches and practical implications for education were discussed. Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore.