Do learning styles work for e-learning as well as learning delivered in more traditional ways?

That's the question asked by Peter Honey, whose work on learning styles with Alan Mumford is well established in the realms of learning theory. Together with the Campaign for Learning, he set out to survey whether people undertaking e-learning had a preference for particular aspects of it, depending on their learning style. The survey established a number of likes and dislikes expressed about e-learning - positive aspects such as its flexibility and availability, and negative aspects such as distracting banners and adverts, failure of technology and lack of scope to develop interpersonal skills.

Peter admits though that any link between these likes and dislikes and learning styles didn't reveal itself clearly, but says that there are some important differences in the ways that people approach online learning. Additional research (242 people took part in the initial survey) is likely to reveal whether people with different learning styles were thinking of the same things when they expressed their likes and dislikes of e-learning. Says Honey: "For example, it seems unlikely that learning ‘at my own pace’ and ‘when and for how long’ would be the same for, say, Activists and Reflectors. My hunch is that Activists would want the pace to be faster and the chunks of time to be shorter than Reflectors."

TrainingZONE says: This is interesting stuff, and something which more research is almost certain to explore as e-learning becomes more established as a method of delivery.