Research teams at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, have been concerned, over many years, to uncover the ‘raw building blocks’ of learning, the actual components of learning itself … not abilities, styles or capacities but those key attributes that govern ‘Learning Power’. They have consistently found that learning can be broken down into 7 identifiable units.

ELLI (the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory) is the on-line instrument that tracks the learner’s development as they gain proficiency in each of the 7 dimensions. Each ELLI profile, a Spidergraphic, captures the learner’s proficiency across all 7 dimensions at the point at which the instrument is completed. This profile provides scores against each dimension which, in combination, have become known as the learner’s ‘Learning Power’.

ELLI plots the learner’s raw potential, mapping strengths and weaknesses across the dimensions and by tracking change, proves beyond reasonable doubt that learning is learnable. Thus, Learning Power changes over time and can be measured over time. It is not an ‘ability’ but rather an innate energy present in everyone and an energy that can be captured to create improvement.

The key to understanding the latent power of tracking changes in a learner’s learning profile is to treat the 7 dimensions as attitudes or dispositions and the product of mindset rather than abilities or skills.