Accommodating learning styles: Relevance and good practice in vocational education and training

• Vocational education and training (VET) providers now deliver programs in new and more flexible ways using a wide range of media and approaches, and in a variety of locations. The diversity of students also means that its teaching staff need to be able to adapt to different learner groups and individuals.

• VET teachers are generally alert to the fact that there are group and individual learning style differences among their VET clients. Teachers see the identification of style and their responses to it as part of good professional practice and is required to achieve client satisfaction.

• Teachers rely strongly on previous experience. They have developed a range of personal methods to identify individual and group learning styles, and a range of techniques to respond to these different styles. Their methods are interactive based on observations of learner reactions to the learning context and media used and then modified as appropriate, rather than on applying particular learning theories.

• There is need for professional development that more clearly indicates to teachers the capacities for training packages to accommodate learning styles through design, delivery and assessment. Based on this research, professional development in learning styles is likely to be best achieved through practical examples of good practice and practical teaching settings, rather than through espousing particular theories of learning style.

• Students were limited in their knowledge of their learning style but felt that teachers did take account of their learning characteristics in their teaching. Nevertheless, there is need for the development and implementation of effective learning-to-learn training for students.

This research had the following four inter-related purposes:

• to identify and clarify the distinctions between learning styles, preferences and strategies of students, and their practical application to vocational education and training (VET) learning environments
• to identify the extent to which the VET sector takes account of preferred learning styles and the range of teaching strategies already in place throughout the sector, their effectiveness for learners and different learner groups, and their applicability to different instructional methodologies and learning outcomes
• to develop a set of strategies that instructors can use to develop learners and knowledge/skill acquisition within the training package context
• to identify a professional development program, or set of programs, that will be valuable in assisting VET instructors to develop client-focused delivery methods.

New teaching technologies in the VET sector have the potential to increase the degree to which the sector can respond to the needs of individual learners, while new ways of thinking about VET delivery have increased the number of ways in which training is delivered. New learning products in vocational education and training, and an increasing demand on the credentials of trainers, have also increased the scope of VET clients and potential clients. These changes in instruction have increased the range of learners that VET services must contend with, while potentially increasing the capacity for the VET sector to respond more differentially to that range of learners. Nonetheless, there is evidence from research in Australia and the United Kingdom that VET instruction may not as yet have fully recognised the need and capacity to adapt to different learner groups and individuals, and that there may still be something of a 'one size fits all' view among VET providers and practitioners.

The research undertaken in this project was designed to identify how VET practitioners view style differences between students, and what sort of account they take of those differences in designing and delivering teaching. Part of that broader research question involved an identification of the methods that VET practitioners use to identify learner group and individual styles, and the forms of response that they make to those identified styles in their teaching. The research was also designed to identify forms of professional development that may be most useful to VET practitioners in their attempts to identify and accommodate style.

The research was undertaken in five technical and further education (TAFE) institutes and one professional network of trainers in private and public registered training organisations. Research sites were spread between Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. Participants in the research were teaching staff, students and management staff. Data collection methods included a questionnaire undertaken by teaching staff, focus groups of teachers, students, and management/support staff, and case studies of exemplary practice. There was some overlap between participants in the questionnaire and focus group components. The questionnaire was largely quantitative and the data analysed quantitatively, while all other research methods were qualitative in nature. Participants were largely self-selected.

Through a literature review the project identified that the concepts of learning styles, learning preferences and learning strategies can be differentially characterised as the following:

• 'learning style' is the individual learner's distinctive and habitual manner of acquiring knowledge, skills or attitudes through study or experience
• 'learning preference' is the favouring of one particular teaching mode over another
• 'learning strategies' are the plans of action that learners adopt in the acquisition of knowledge, skills or attitudes through study or experience
• styles tend to be more stable within an individual across different learning tasks and contexts; preferences are more variable across different learning tasks and contexts; and strategies vary between learning tasks on a basis how best the learner believes a learning task can be successfully completed.

The following points summarise the major findings of the research:

Teachers:

• Experienced VET teachers develop an intrinsic understanding and response to student learning styles and preferences.
• VET teachers generally understand that learning styles, preferences and strategies are largely the same concept, and are expressions of individual differences between students in the way that they like to learn. That understanding is mainly developed through experience and observation of students, rather than an understanding based on theory.
• There was general recognition that responding to student style formed part of good teaching practice, and was seen as something that a teacher should do as part of providing a professional and quality learning experience for students.
• The understandings teachers have, based as they are in experience and observation, serve them well and enable them to identify different style characteristics between individuals and between groups, as well as responding to those differences in teaching design and delivery.
• Teachers have developed a range of personal methods of identifying individual and group style, and a range of techniques that they used to respond to individual and group style differences.
• Teachers identified learning styles through two domains of student activity: the first is associated with student reaction to different media used to present content such as visual, hands-on, listening, and print-based; and the second domain comprised student reaction to various learning contexts such as group learning, collaborative learning, independent learning, and instructor-led learning. Teachers identified style differences in these domains at a level of analysis with which they could work, and at which they could respond.
• Teachers identified with, and responded to, student group and individual style in an interactive and ongoing way. They would start a new group with some preconceptions based on previous experience, and then would progressively modify those preconceptions through observation and interaction with the new group. On that basis they would modify teaching, and then use those modifications to make new observations about individuals and the group.

Students:

• Students in the VET sector commonly expressed the view that their teachers did take account of student learning characteristics in their teaching, and provided experiences that were designed to cater for them as individuals.
• Students were limited in their understanding of their own style, conceptualising style largely as to whether they liked to sit and listen to 'lectures', or whether they liked to engage in learning that is hands-on.
• In a context of greater student choice between different media for content presentation, greater choice among different modes of study, and a higher need for self-management in resource-based and flexible learning contexts, there is need for the development and implementation of effective learning-to-learn training for students.

Organisational:

• The view was quite commonly expressed that response to learner style was part of the customer service business model of VET providers, and should belong in the same area of organisational strategy as other forms of learner-centred client service.
• A common concern expressed by teachers was that the main constraint in providing teaching that is responsive to style was the time they had available to achieve this. Similar concern was expressed that in a price-competitive VET market environment, the need to provide training in the cheapest and quickest way possible often outweighed the capacity to provide quality learner-centred teaching.
• The observation/interaction process and subsequent modification worked most successfully for teachers who had regular contact with the same group of students. The process was progressively more difficult as regular contact decreased. Teachers whose exposure to a group was occasional, block release (when students are away from their workplace for short teaching periods), or through remote teaching delivery methods had much less opportunity to identify and respond to style.
• Although many experienced teachers believed that training packages gave them considerable opportunity to respond to student style, others felt that training packages were constraining in their capacity to deliver training that was responsive to individual and group style. The majority of teachers felt that training packages were limiting the capacity of teachers to respond to student style when designing and conducting assessment.
• Teachers felt constrained by time, and the demands and limitations of the training packages in developing students' self-directed learning skills (as opposed to self-paced learning skills) and their learning-to-learn capacity.

Professional development:

• There was considerable difference across the six research sites in the number of staff who had participated in professional development related to learning styles— some research sites have a high commitment to professional development in that area, while others have relatively low commitment. However, all research sites had already provided some professional development on styles.
• Most professional development on styles appeared to have been delivered in a theoretical context with a focus on one or two particular theories of learning style. The research indicates that professional development on styles may be most effective when the focus is more on teacher identification and response to style in practical teaching settings, rather than knowledge of theoretical models. However, some knowledge of theoretical models is important to ensure that teacher understanding is not based only on experience. There is also value in focusing the professional development on the issues of style identification through content presentation methods, and through the different learning contexts in which students engage.
• Professional development that presents potential methods for teaching and assessment within training packages would also be particularly useful in enabling teachers to gain a better understanding of the capacities they have to respond to students within the training package design.
• Professional development that provides teachers with guidance on how they can use their knowledge of learning styles to support students studying at a distance would be particularly beneficial.
• A proposed professional development program was an outcome of the research.