In a world where big data is creating new opportunities, it is no great leap from teaching tailored to your personality type to political advertising targeting your individual prejudices.
"We must remember that big data also can be easily misused," says Biostatistics Professor Solve Sæbø at Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
As a professor of statistics he is more than averagely interested in the opportunities and pitfalls afforded by big data.
"The transition from statistics to big data is not long: for what is statistics, other than analysis of large amounts of information and extracting information from large data sets?
“What is new is the sheer volume of data and the improvements in computer technology. Big data has enabled a quantum leap in nearly all aspects of research," says Sæbø.
Tailored teaching
Sæbø is himself conducting research into how the various personality types learn best.
He is collaborating with psychology Doctor Helge Brovold on the analysis of results from the educational test carried out by the Norwegian Centre for Science Recruitment, where so far around 50,000 young people have voluntarily answered questions related to science education.
The questions concerned careers interest, personality, preferred learning method and preferences for science subjects. Sæbø has used the same test on the students taking the basic course in statistics at NMBU.
Part of the research is based on the standard Five Factor Model of Personality, which groups people in five categories based on how emotionally reactive, open, conscientious, extroverted and agreeable they are.
The purpose is to find out how well standard lectures work for different personality types, compared with more active teaching forms, such as the 'flipped classroom' technique.
As part of the latter teaching method students learn the subject through relevant exercises, group work and discussion, i.e. they learn more through their own efforts. Before class, the students watch pre-recorded lectures in peace and quiet online.
Jazz or brass band
The results so far indicate that the personality types that collaborate well and gain knowledge through talking, can benefit greatly from the flipped classroom pedagogy. The same applies to more creative personality types, what Sæbø calls 'jazz musicians'.