How can trainers cater for different learning styles?

Most trainers have come across the idea that different people learn best according to their style of learning.  As a trainer, you might have encountered Fleming’s model of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners, or Honey and Mumford’s idea that learners are activists, reflectors, Theorists or Pragmatists depending on which part of the learning cycle they learnt best: having an experience; reviewing the experience; concluding from the experience or planning the next steps.  There are many other theories that suggest that different learning styles exist, and a good, brief review of these can be found on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles).

The question that remains is on what basis are these models theorized, and is there any evidence to suggest that learners really do learn best from their individual style.  Given the resource and money that is put into determining learning styles, it would be easy to assume that the evidence for these styles is substantial and conclusive – but, in fact it is not.

A recent paper by Harold Pashler and colleagues reviewed the evidence for learning styles, and found that there were very few research studies that had adequately tested the idea that people learn best when taught according to their own learning style.  To address this, Pashler and colleagues ran a study where students were grouped according to their learning style (auditory or visual). Two measures of learning style were taken, a self report measure in which students were asked what their learning preference was (subjective measure), and a score on a test of learning style (a better, objective measure). Students were put in groups and were then taught by their preferred or non-preferred learning style.  The results did not show the pattern that would be predicted if the hypothesis that learning styles were useful was supported. So, auditory learners did not learn better than visual learners when taught using an auditory method, and visual learners did not learn better than auditory learners when taught using a visual technique.  In fact, both groups of learner improved when a visual cue was added to the learning!

While this study has not shown that there is no evidence for learning styles, it does question whether we should stop and think again about this.  One suggestion that has been made for why the belief in learning styles has been so influential is that knowing about these has an impact, not on the learner, but on the trainer.  If you are preparing a lesson in the knowledge that there might be a mixture of learning styles in the room, it is possible that you put more types of learning experience into the plan – thus all learners benefit from all possible learning methods.

Thus, the important thing for trainers to think about is not whether people learn better through one route, but how to include as many routes as possible to learning when designing your training.  Learning works best when memories are coded through as many sensory experiences as possible – this activates the stickiest memories.  If you would like to know more about how to make memories sticky, come along to my Brain Waves workshop where we will discuss how best to train with the brain in mind.

Posted Saturday, February 12th, 2011 in Brain Friendly Learning, Changing, Communication Skills, Continuous Improvement, Kaizen, Neuroscience/Psychology, Personal Development, Personal Resilience, Presenting Skills, Sales, Influencing, Negotiating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.