Your learning style is hokum

If you have ever spent any time with training consultants it is almost certain that you will have been exposed to the various ways in which they love to categorise us all into little boxes. You will be told you have this or that "emotional IQ" or that you are a person with a particular "learning style".

One trainer, used by an organisation I worked for, packaged his training pitch up with esoteric American Indian hokum. He basically took common sense notions such as learning to remain relaxed and focused in problematic leadership scenarios and packaged them up in "earth wind and fire" shamanic nonsense.

It may have been hokum - but it was very good paying hokum - something he seemed uncomfortable about acknowledging when I pointed it out while also informing him that what he was teaching was basically a variation of standard relaxation techniques.

Some recent research has now highlighted that another training theory used by many consultants has virtually no scientific evidence to support it.

Are you a Visual Learner or an Auditory Leaner? Which of these is your learning style? Well , if a report on a recent review of the literature on learning styles is to be believed you are simply just a learner - there is no evidence to support the view that people are mainly Visual or Auditory Learners.

Consultants have built whole careers around these types of "Learning Models", often claiming that their training material is artfully crafted to deal with peoples different learning styles.

I have even heard people in learning events claiming " I am a visual learner" or "I am an Auditory style person" as though this was some excuse for failing to grapple with material that had to be learned.

I don't suppose this research will stop training consultants peddling their "Learning models" and neither will it stop people claiming that the reason they didn't learn something was because it was presented in the "wrong" learning style.

Good trainers will I guess also continue to do what they have always done and try to present their material in an interesting and stimulating way.

I would be interested to hear what experiences readers have had with trainers and their teaching approaches.