Training Industry Magazine - November/December 2016 - 35

The instructional design blogosphere is all abuzz with the debunking of
"learning styles." Most of us know that there really is no such thing as visual
learners, auditory learners and kinesthetic learners. More accurately, if
such learning style preferences really do exist, there is no research that
demonstrates an improvement when training is designed for a particular
learning style.
The conventional wisdom that "learners
learn best when teaching styles are
matched to learning styles" has been
thoroughly put to rest by everyone from
Will Thalheimer, Cathy Moore and Peter
DeWitt to Wired Magazine. Ruth Clark
wrote in 2012 that we need to "Stop
Wasting Resources on Learning Styles"
while The Onion spoofed learning styles
as far back as 2000.

of training. Learning success (as measured
by task performance) is not related to a
preferred learning style, but rather what
the learner is expected to do as a result of
the training.

This leaves us with the question: If we
don't need to worry about learning styles,
then what should we use to improve the
learning experience? What is the most
effective way to transfer knowledge from
instructor to learner if we don't tweak the
training to fit learning styles? Rather than
answer the question directly, let's reflect
on a learning experience and see what
insights we discover.

Consider the skill of parallel parking. At
minimum, it consists of a "kinesthetic"
lesson, usually in a parking lot with
traffic cones outlining the parking space.
It is usually accompanied by videos,
lectures, explanations and diagrams. No
competent teacher would say to a "visual
learner" that all they have to do in order
to succeed at parallel parking is to watch
an expert performance of the task and
they are good to go. Neither would an
instructor seriously consider that a set of
verbal instructions are all that's required
for "auditory learners" to acquire the
necessary skills to park successfully.

What is the most effective portion
of a Driver's Education class? Is it the
classroom instruction that teaches the
rules of the road? Is it the horrifying videos
that provided lessons on the disastrous
consequences of unsafe driving? Or
is it the time spent in the parking lot
navigating those traffic cones and
traveling on the road operating a vehicle
in the live environment?

You might argue the point that parallel
parking is a complex activity and it
cannot be confined to presentation in a
single learning style. In this, you would
be entirely correct. In reality, almost all
the tasks we train are complex activities
requiring multiple skills. Instead of relying
on learning styles to achieve educational
success, we need an alternative. That
alternative is task-based design.

If you had a hard time settling on a single
answer, then you understand the futility
of applying "learning styles" to the reality

LEARNING SUCCESS
IS DETERMINED
BY WHAT THE
LEARNER IS
EXPECTED TO
DO AS A RESULT
OF THE TRAINING.

TASK-BASED DESIGN
Evaluate the task or skill that you want
the learners to acquire and train them in

T R A I N I N G I N DUSTR Y MA GAZ INE - TRENDS201 7 I WWW.TRAI NINGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

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http://www.debunker.club/learning-styles-are-not-an-effective-guide-for-learning-design.html http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2010/09/learning-styles-worth-our-time/ http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2014/04/the_myth_of_learning_styles.html http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2014/04/the_myth_of_learning_styles.html http://www.wired.com/2015/01/need-know-learning-styles-myth-two-minutes/ https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/L-and-D-Blog/2012/05/Stop-Wasting-Resources-on-Learning-Styles https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/L-and-D-Blog/2012/05/Stop-Wasting-Resources-on-Learning-Styles http://www.trainingindustry.com/ezine.aspx

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - November/December 2016