by AJ George 
Do you wish you could get inside the head of your learners and know exactly how their thought processes work? Me too, but we can't all be Professor Xavier.
Learning assessments provider Pearson TalentLens has managed to make a bit of self-examination possible at least. They have created the My Thinking Styles assessment to help people explore their unique thinking styles. The two part online assessment is free, takes only minutes to complete, and provides a basic report of the participant's thinking styles.
The service is not perfect. The end report focuses mainly on the benefits of each thinking style, rather than giving tips for improvement. Additionally, according to this report, I use nearly all thinking styles to a large degree so it would be difficult to focus on one style if I wanted. That being said, it is a useful free resource and may be one you would like to add to your metaphorical tool belt.
Allowing clients to complete the survey prior to creating eLearning for them (or passing it along for them to administer to all members of their team) might give you another perspective on how to approach their training. In a company setting it might also help you in the hiring process or to delegate tasks best suited to each team member's thinking style.
Give the assessment a try. How accurately (or inaccurately) does it peg you?
Hi AJ,
I had the same kind of results as you did (even-ish scores across multiple styles). I wonder if there is a study somewhere about two eLearning courses presenting the same topic, but with one course catering strongly for a particular thinking style, and then how effective this was for learners with a predominance for that style. I don’t think the difference would be much, certainly not enough to justify doing 7 or so different version of the same course. What are your views?
Cheers,
Adrienne
Hi AJ,
I had the same kind of results as you did (even-ish scores across multiple styles). I wonder if there is a study somewhere about two eLearning courses presenting the same topic, but with one course catering strongly for a particular thinking style, and then how effective this was for learners with a predominance for that style. I don’t think the difference would be much, certainly not enough to justify doing 7 or so different version of the same course. What are your views?
Cheers,
Adrienne
Hi AJ,
I had the same kind of results as you did (even-ish scores across multiple styles). I wonder if there is a study somewhere about two eLearning courses presenting the same topic, but with one course catering strongly for a particular thinking style, and then how effective this was for learners with a predominance for that style. I don’t think the difference would be much, certainly not enough to justify doing 7 or so different version of the same course. What are your views?
Cheers,
Adrienne
I’m not aware of such a study, but I would definitely not do multiple versions of the same course. I would instead try to pinpoint a majority learning style ahead of time and cater to that.
I’m not aware of such a study, but I would definitely not do multiple versions of the same course. I would instead try to pinpoint a majority learning style ahead of time and cater to that.
I’m not aware of such a study, but I would definitely not do multiple versions of the same course. I would instead try to pinpoint a majority learning style ahead of time and cater to that.