Developing Criminological Skills
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“People learn in different ways”

Different people have different style of learning, David a. Kolb explored into the development of different learning styles.

Kolb created his famous learning style model “Experiential Learning Theory” (Kolb 1984) based on four elements: concrete experience, observation and reflection, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation.

Concrete experience and abstract conceptualization are ways of how we think and transform experiences through the emotional responses. The concrete experience type emotionally converts the experiences through experiencing the feeling and concrete during the process. Whereas, abstract conceptualization type through planning, analyzing and thinking.

Active experimentation and observation and reflection are methods of how we approach to the tasks and how we do. Active experimentation type, approach to tasks by actively doing the actual experiments. While observation and reflection approach to experiences by watching others throughout the tasks, and reflect on the situation.

Based on the four elements, Kolb defined four distinct definitions of learning styles: diverging, assimilating, converging and accommodating (Kolb 1984).

Diverging type has the elements of concrete experience and observation and reflection. Diverging type of people performs better in situations where creation of ideas needed, and collecting information. They look at things from a different perception, and employ their own imagination to solve problems. People with this type of learning style usually have good interested in cultural and peoples, and prefer to work in groups. They also like to be given comments and listen with an open mind.

Assimilating type of people learns by thinking and observing, this type of style consists of abstract conceptualization