variable personalities

At my placement, we were discussing how different personalities learn and approach problems differently. There is the aggressor who approaches a problem and without thinking too far ahead, they just jump right into getting a solution. Basically they usually get ahead of themselves and haven't really thought things through. Then there's the reflector who will take their time and think of all the possible solutions before coming up with a plan. There's a third one but I can't seem to remember it at the moment.

One of the physios went to this workshop and everyone had to answer a questionnaire to determine which type of personaility they were. Then they all got into their respected groups and each group had to solve the same problem. She said that it was just interesting to see how different each group approached the problem. Everyone in the aggressor group began to all try to take charge and talk over each other. They all had a plan in a matter of a second. The reflector group all sat there staring at the problem and individually thought about it for a while before discussing it together.

The physio was an aggressor and she said that if a student didn't answer her questions immediately, she use to think that the student didn't know it. But now it could just be that they were reflectors and needed time to think it through.

This is quite interesting because we're all very different and if the supervisor knows what type of personality student they have, it may help the learning process for us students. She was thinking of getting the next lot of students to fill out the questionnaire on the first day of prac. I think it's a fanatastic idea and more placements should take students' problem solving approaches into account.