The Impact of the Relationship between Gardner's Multiple Intelligence and Kolb's Learning Style

Abstract

In a diverse work environment, it is important to have diverse leaders, managers, and people with different talents and intelligence in order to deal with different problems. In this case, each individual can know their own strength and weakness, and know which position works best for them. The concept of learning styles is used to describe individual differences in the way people learn. According to Kolb (1984), each person has a unique way to absorb and process experiences and information. He has identified four statistically prevalent learning styles- diverging, assimilating, converging, and accommodating. On the other hand, Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory is very helpful to recognize that people have differing aptitude in different subject areas. This chapter documents a study in which the participants consisted of 153 bachelor students of Management from the Multimedia University of Malaysia. They were given two questionnaires, one for Kolb's learning style and other for Gardner's Multiple Intelligence inventory and a correlation was conducted. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between Kolb's Learning Style and Multiple Intelligence. The relationship could be seen particularly in Abstract Conceptualization (AC) and Multiple Intelligences which were Nature, kinesthetic, music, word, interpersonal, and picture. The results also indicated that the majority of the participants are between AC and AE which means they are convergers. Having the right information for companies can be beneficial since knowing how their employees learn can lead to a diverse workplace that would have significant results on organizational structure, planning, development, and operation.