Learning approaches and career personality types: Biggs and Holland united

Abstract

For the past decade or so, empirically testing the relationships between style constructs with different underlying theoretical models has been one of the major endeavors of many scholars. The present study is the first that investigates the relationships between learning approaches and career personality types, both classified as style constructs although neither of the terms carries the label 'style'. Participants were two hundred and three (57 male and 146 female) volunteer students from a large teacher-training university in Shanghai, PR China. The participants responded to the Study Process Questionnaire and the Short-Version Self-Directed Search. The major finding is that learning approaches and career personality types statistically predicted each other beyond students' ages, which has implications for both teaching faculty and university career counselors in their process of facilitating a holistic student development. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.