Learning style theory has been heralded as useful in planning instructional experiences for diverse populations of students. Currently, nurse educators are using learning style theory (1) as a framework for identifying needs of students prior to entry into professional educational programs, and (2) as a means of identifying alternative methods of instruction for meeting the educational needs of diverse populations of professional nursing students.

Of all the research related to learning styles, the approach which appears most critical to current nursing practice is that of information processing. This approach, which is proposed to reflect one's means of processing information and solving critical problems, appears conceptually similar to the nursing process scheme of decision making.

This study examines the relationship between measures of information processing learning style and measures of nursing process. Following the examination of one hundred thirty nursing students using the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (1976) and the R.N. Evaluation Instrument, canonical variate analyses were performed.

All possible canonical variates were extracted from the data sets. Only the first demonstrated significance (P =.007). This significant canonical variate indicated a relationship between the "diagnosis" nursing process measure and the "reflective observation" information processing measure. This relationship appears to reflect a problem solving-decision making attribute common to both instruments.

Further analyses revealed a 28.04 percent informational overlap between the information processing learning style measures and the measures of nursing process. Fifteen percent of the information processing variance was observed to be overlapping with the nursing process measures and 34.5 percent of the variance within the nursing process measures was overlapping with the information processing learning style measures.

These findings support the emphasis that should be placed on nursing diagnosis and reflective observation in clinical and academic settings. By fostering the utilization of these strategies simultaneous benefit in the administration of patient care is anticipated. The ultimate test of significance of these findings would involve the multivariate investigation of congruence of these measures with measures of quality patient care. This notion is recommended for further study.