Learning Preferences maximise coaches learning experiences

I am always fascinated how people and why people learn in different ways. This has become more relevant to me when my dear Mother told me when I was in my late forties that I had been diagnosed as dyslexic when I was young but never told me as “nothing could have been done”. She encouraged me in my childhood years to go down a practical activity route; sport, catering etc and dragged me along to an interview for a course as a catering manager – thank goodness I hadn’t passed my English at the time!

Having said all that though my tutoring and teaching I have found that people need to have different ways to confirm that the learning is embedded and I am interested that some people just can’t learnt it in the same way as I do. I can assure you I have had many different experiences proving this. A highly intelligent boy at school when I was teaching needed any activity we were about to undertake written down so he could read it before starting, one boy needed showing particular movements as he couldn’t interpret a tactics board at time outs. This last one I learnt to my teams cost as we lost on the buzzer of a set play he didn’t execute as he didn’t understand the drawings on the tactics board.

That said clearly people wish to take in information and in tutors and coaches deliver information in a style that suits them. Much has been recently written about learning styles not existing mainly to challenge other academics work in my view but contextualising a way of demonstrating that coaches and tutors need to take into account that people learn in different ways is the critical aspect of this approach.

In the last three years I have delivered through Sport Structures a number of tutor training courses for coach tutors in sports including; Football, Basketball, Handball, Boxing and Swimming. In all of them I have asked learners to take the VARK test to identify learning preferences in the context to identify that people learn in different ways.

The assessments were carried out on course and prior to any delivery of taught sessions on learning styles. The VARK test assesses learning styles of participants within an adult learning environment and the definitions are as follows:

• VISUAL- learners who would like to see it on the whiteboard, flip charts, walls, graphics, pictures, colour. They are probably your creative students and love using colours
• AUDITORY-learners who would like to sit back and listen. They don't make a lot of notes
• READ/WRITE- learners who need to read the information for themselves and they take a lot of notes
• KINAESTHETIC-learners who cannot sit still for long, like to fiddle with things. They like to be actively involved in their learning.

My definitions come from a slightly different and less scientific interpretation. I ask people to take the "IKEA" test i.e. what do they do when they get an IKEA flat-packed item; to they read all the instructions laying all the pieces out before starting to construct, or read all the instructions then build or just get on with building and if some bits are left over then they can be kept for next time! A demonstration in my view of different approaches to delivery of learning.

Neil Fleming, the inventor of the VARK test, has developed the assessment of learning styles over the recent years from VAK to include the R for read write as he felt that this was not clearly enough defined. The analysis of the results was carried out through the VARK online assessment tool as we at Sport Structures hold a worldwide licence to assess learners in the VARK test.

The attendees were potential sports coach tutors who were at least level 2 in their chosen sport. The four cohorts who submitted responses were from Swimming and Football whilst an undisclosed number also had qualifications in other sports the overall group is therefore drawn from both team and individual sports coaching/tutoring.

The total number of responses was Ninety-five and all willingly took part and shared their scores. In the cases of these courses they were “closed” to the client to identify learners to attend the courses. At the end of each course all the learners were deemed as competent.

In taking the test I reiterated Fleming's guidance; 

“The results indicate their preferences but are not necessarily their strengths. This reduces the anxiety for respondents who may express the view that the questionnaire says they are not good readers or not visually strong.”

Results

Learning preferences 

The following charts show the results for the participants who have filled in the questionnaire. Where someone has filled in the questionnaire more than once, only the first of that person's responses is included.

Detailed learning preferences 

Participants with a Zero score for a modality

The first diagram show the broad preference of people's learning style. Clearly very KINAESTHETIC with second most a multiple preference. The second diagram looks into these preferences in more detail. However shows clearly Kinaesthetic is the most dominant in very strong, strong or mild. However what is surprising is that from the learners visual is very low and only appears in one segment with Auditory and Kinaesthetic. This is is surprising as all were sports people and have been through coach education courses where demonstration was seen as essential to learning. As described in the bar graph below a high percentage of learners scored zero on visual as a preference. 

Dominant learning preference 

Then analysing the most dominant as described above the most dominant was Kinaesthetic with Aural and second. From my experiences of using the test in its VAK days this is significantly different as Visual learning preference was second to Kinaesthetic. This clearly was the reason for Fleming splitting the Visual element of the test. 

What does this tell us?

From the results it is confirms that most groups will be drawn from a mixed learning background and a range of learning styles. However from the results it demonstrates a clear preference to Kinaesthetic learning and therefore guides tutor to put an emphasis on this approach. Although the majority of learners have a mixed preference to their learning.

" Work and life experiences may blur differences between preferences as people learn to use Visual, Aural, Read/write and Kinesthetic modes in new situations. Preferences may also be masked by experiences."

What is surprising is that Visual is the lowest learning style. This contradicts with the assumption that people learn well through watching demonstrations.  The results challenge this convention. In so many coach education courses for which this cohort where to be tutors their is an emphasis on demonstration. If a cohort of potential new coaches are of a similar preference then is learning  likely to be maximised? 

One Boxing tutor interpreted the results thus:

"As we are kinaesthetic in our preference then were prefer to "do the demonstration" which is obviously our preference. However this may not be the learner coaches preference and they may be "chomping at the bite" to get on with doing the activity"

The groups that took  the test were practical coaches and this could account for the reasonably high score of audio style and the lower score of read/write style. 

"As tutors sometimes we like the sound of our own voices too much"

The study, although limited in its scope of learners, clearly demonstrates the need for coach tutors to make courses more about kinaesthetic  learning with learners being allowed to self discover ways of coaching than previously considered. 

Furthermore this has had a fundamental effect on the delivery of Sport Structures courses making them more practical and learner centered that they previously were leading to greater satisfaction and greater likelihood of coaches enjoying the educational experience. 

My thanks to Dr Fleming and his model and I urge people to take the test! VARK