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The work of Peter Honey and Alan Mumford in the area of learning styles has been widely acclaimed and applied in recent years. Articles of more or less unqualified praise have appeared in a number of professional journals[1,2] and it seems fashionable for trainers to assert that they design their programmes with Honey and Mumford's learning styles in mind.
Unquestionably, Honey and Mumford's approach has been salutory in emphasizing that we all do learn in different ways and that uniform approaches to education and training, whether they be based on talk and chalk, experiential exercises or, indeed, distance learning, will not be suitable for every individual.
Having used the learning styles questionnaire with many training groups, however, and having discussed the application of the associated theory with them, we have become increasingly sceptical about the model's meaning and significance. This is not to deny its usefulness as a stimulus to debate, or as a focus for exploring learning preferences, we would simply question the coherence and validity of aspects of the model.
THE THEORY
In essence, Honey and Mumford argue that people learn most usefully from experience. However, they suggest that simply having experiences does not guarantee effective learning. The experience should be reviewed, conclusions drawn from the review, and action taken to build upon the conclusions drawn. This sequence is usually diagrammatically represented as shown in Figure 1.
Effective learning from experience is only ensured by going through this cycle in its entirety. It seems to be the case, moreover, that some people concentrate on, or are better at, some stages of the cycle to the exclusion of others and, consequently, to the detriment of learning. Learning styles correlate with the cycle as shown in Figure 2.
Thus, people with high Reflector and low Activist scores may avoid experiences and learn vicariously through observation. "High" Pragmatists and "low" Theorists may only learn and be interested in things that work practically, in the here and now, without understanding why they work or if they would work in a different context.
By using a questionnaire, one's preferred learning style(s) can be identified and action plans derived to strengthen weaknesses or ensure exposure to learning situations which will improve the chances of effective learning taking place.
QUESTIONS...