Learning Styles
Brian Moore & Guy Flouch outline how training effectiveness can be improved by developing a greater understanding of the learning styles of our trainees
Clearly, learning is the goal of our training. As trainers, you have probably noticed that some trainees appear to learn ‘quicker’ or ‘more easliy’ than others. While we are all natural learners, research in recent decades has discovered that we all have preferred ways of learning, preferred ways of absorbing information. These discoveries have revealed that if information is presented to us in line with our ‘preferred learning style’ we are more likely to learn ‘quickly’ or ‘more easily’. This has an huge impact on us as trainers and on how we might, most usefully, present information to our trainees.
Learning Styles & Kolb
Many of the discoveries on Learning Styles derive from the work of Carl Jung. His book Psychological Types, written in 1923 was concerned with type casting a person in order to predict his or her personality. Isabel Briggs Myer continued Jung’s work, using it to create the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator; the most widely used psychological profiling system in business today. Other important contributions to understanding adult learning theory were made by Kolb, Honey & Mumford and, in the 1970s, by Berenice McCarthy with her 4MAT System for Learning.
David Kolb has written extensively on the subject and his model is frequently used. Kolb identified two separate learning activities: perception and processing. Each of these learning activities can be divided into opposites. For example, Kolb asserts that some people best perceive information using concrete experiences (like feeling, touching, seeing, and hearing) while others best perceive information abstractly (using mental or visual conceptualization).
Once information is perceived, it must be processed. Some people process information best by active experimentation (doing something with the information) while others perceive best by
reflective observation (thinking about it). There are four learning dimensions in Kolb’s model:
Concrete experience: learning from specific experiences, relating to people, and sensitivity to feelings and people
Reflective observation: careful observation before making a judgement, viewing things from different perspectives, and looking for the meaning of things
Abstract conceptualisation: logical analysis of ideas, systematic planning, acting on intellectual understanding of a situation
Active experimentation: ability to get things done, risk taking, influence people and events through action
Kolb\'s model is only one of many. Anthony Gregorc modified Kolb\'s dimensions by focusing on random and sequential processing of information. This is similar to top-down and bottom up
processing. Top-down learners look at the whole task (random) while bottom-up learners proceed one-step-at-a-time (sequentially).
McCarthy’s 4MAT System
In the 1970s, Berenice McCarthy devised her 4MAT System for Learning, breaking down learning styles into four categories as follows:
- those that wanted reasons: they habitually asked Why?
- others wanted facts: they asked What?
- others were very pragmatic: they wanted to do things, to find out How? things work
- the remainder wanted to explore consequences: They were interested in What If?
In general, McCarthy broke down a typical learning population, between these styles, as follows:
4MAT
Learning Style
%
Why?
Discussion
35
What?
Teaching
22
How?
Coaching
18
What if?
Seld-Discovery
25
Table 1: The percentage of learners attributed to the different styles under the 4MAT System
The percentage of people fitting into each category as shown in Table 1 is roughly evenly divided, so if your training has been designed to accommodate these styles it will have the desired impact with all of the delegates.
However, in a corporate setting any selected group from sales people and managers, to engineers and accountants, will often have a role-centred bias towards a particular category of learning style. Even different national cultures have their own unique learning styles so this is worth considering too, when structuring the training.
As a general rule, to achieve optimum results in training effectiveness, ensure that each module of the training is designed to include discussion, teaching, coaching and self-discovery. In this way, all four of McCarthy’s categories will be satisfied and the participants happy.
Where participants are asked to carry out a practical exercise, a demonstration can given by the trainer. Then when the participants are sent to do the exercise, the trainer is on hand to provide additional coaching as required, to ensure that the exercise is completed correctly and the participants are competent in the execution of the exercise. Following each exercise, participants are invited to give feedback on the learning and or clarify anything they were unsure of. So, when designing your training, you need to ensure that you order and sequence the information for the learners to accommodate their learning styles and this needs to be done in the following order:
1. Start with the ‘whys’ because, until you get the learners motivated to listen to you, they’ll potentially switch off .To engage these people it’s important to give them reasons why they should listen.
2. The next step in the process is the ‘what’ information: the facts relating to your topic or subject or the details of the exercise you are about to send them on.
3. Thirdly, the ‘how’ which, in training, is often an exercise where they get to do something that will reinforce the subject being taught.
4. Lastly, the ‘what if’ or the consequences of what will happen if you do this or what will happen if you don’t. This is often satisfied in training by asking \'what did you learn, what did you discover and what questions do you have?\'
Type Four:IF?
Type One:WHY?
Modifying
Shifting
Adapting
Risking
Intuiting
Collaborating
CreatingBrainstorming
Listening
Speaking
Interacting
Knowing Oneself
Understanding Others
Appreciating Others
Type Three:HOW?
Type Two:WHAT?
Experimenting
Manipulating Materials and Ideas
Following Directions
Making things Work
Testing Reality
Tinkering
Improving
ApplyingObserving
Analysing
Classifying
Drawing Conclusions
Theorising
Seeing Patterns and Connections
Conceptualising a Sense of the Whole
Table 2: The skills of McCarthy\'s Four Learning Styles
NLP & Learning Styles
Amongst the approaches taken by NLP, one of the most effective is to understand how different learners prioritise different sensory channels for different activities in their lives, including learning. Different people prefer to take in and process information in different sensory channels.
Some trainees like to see their information and are best approached through handouts, PowerPoint presentations, flip charts and having a clear overview of their training session or programme. Others are more auditory. They prefer to receive their information by listening to it. For them, a lecture-based format is ideal, especially one with lots of questions and answers. Kinaesthetic [‘touchy-feely’] processors learn by doing and feeling. Demonstrations, role-play, emotional implication are all important learning tools for them.
NLP provides tools for developing your own sensory acuity, as a trainer, and for identifying the preferred learning channels of your trainees, which is particularly important when dealing with questions, coaching or otherwise on a one-to-one basis. When dealing with a group, NLP practitioners stress the importance of ensuring that your training materials and your overall training approach, including the language you choose to use, appeals to all three main sensory channels.
NLP’s Metaprogrammes are systematic and habitual ways of thinking. They can also impact significantly impact on the effectiveness on our training. You should refer to Brain Moore’s discussion of these in an earlier First Train article (Volume 2, Issue 1).
Respect Your Trainees
Whether you subscribe to any of these schools of thought, or not, you have probably noticed that different trainees prefer to learn in different ways. The mere act of examining your trainees’ learning preferences is an act of immense respect to them and likely to have a very positive impact on your training sessions, if followed through.
