The majority of today's students have personality types "very different from those of their professors," according to John C. Bean in Engaging Ideas (40). A study at the University of Missouri (Schroeder, 1993 qtd. in Bean 40) analyzed the personality types of the first-year class and samples of faculty members and found that approximately 60 percent of the students were sensing types, "whereas fewer than 10 percent of the faculty members fit that style" (Bean 40). The kinds of writing that teachers enjoyed doing in college, "open-ended, analytical, theoretical," differ from what today's students prefer: "structured and concrete with detailed explanation of what the teacher wants and lots of help" (40-41).

Jensen and DiTiberio's Personality and the Teaching of Composition (1989) used the Myers-Briggs inventory to show differences among writers that can help faculty in designing writing assignments. Their overall conclusion is that "students vary widely in how they approach writing and in the kinds of writing they prefer to do" (Bean 40).

Extroverts enjoy using class discussions or small groups to explore their ideas, whereas introverts "like solitude, preferring a journal" (Bean 40). Sensing types "want writing assignments with very detailed instructions and guidelines" (Bean 40). They love the five-paragraph theme. Intuitive types "rebel against prescribed patterns" and like open-ended assignments with the opportunity to be creative and personal (Bean 39).

Students with a preference for thinking "excel at writing logical, well-organized essays requiring analysis and argumentation" (Bean 39). They can use reason and evidence and "stay personally detached from the issue" (Bean 39). Their opposites, those students with a preference for feeling, prefer assignments that "allow for personal voice, conviction, and emotion" (39). They would like putting their personal experience in a paper or using a narrative approach. Judgers "tend to arrive at a thesis quickly" and are bored with journals (Bean 40). Perceivers, on the other hand, like to "play with ideas endlessly" and "have trouble deciding on a thesis" unless a deadline forces them to make a decision (40).

What's a teacher to do with all these differences? On one hand, students can learn from doing an assignment that is not their natural preference for writing. Journals, for example, can be good for judgers unused to exploring widely before deciding on an issue. Nevertheless, faculty might include several different kinds of assignments in a course to give students opportunity to find one or two that are effective for them.

Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.

Personality Preferences Affect Faculty Evaluation of Writing

Writing Processes Differ