ADULT LEARNING THEORIES

In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, in the

expert's mind there are few.
 Experiential Learning (Kolb)
• Building upon earlier work by John Dewey and Kurt Levin, American
educational theorist David A. Kolb believes “learning is the process
whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience”
(1984, p. 38).

• The theory presents a cyclical model of learning, consisting of four stages

shown below. One may begin at any stage, but must follow each other in
the sequence:

 concrete experience (or “DO”)

 reflective observation (or “OBSERVE”)
 abstract conceptualization (or “THINK”)
 active experimentation (or “PLAN”)
Experiential Learning (Kolb)
• Kolb’s four-stage learning cycle shows how experience is translated
through reflection into concepts, which in turn are used as guides for
active experimentation and the choice of new experiences.

• The first stage, concrete experience (CE), is where the learner actively
experiences an activity such as a lab session or field work.

• The second stage, reflective observation (RO), is when the learner

consciously reflects back on that experience.

• The third stage, abstract conceptualization (AC), is where the learner

attempts to conceptualize a theory or model of what is observed.

• The fourth stage, active experimentation (AE), is where the learner is

trying to plan how to test a model or theory or plan for a forthcoming
experience.
 Kolb identified four learning styles which correspond to these stages. The
styles highlight conditions under which learners learn better. These styles
are:

• Assimilators who learn better when presented with sound logical theories
to consider

• Convergers who learn better when provided with practical applications of

concepts and theories

• Accommodators who learn better when provided with “hands-on”

experiences

• Divergers, who learn better when allowed to observe and collect a wide
range of information
 Role of Training in Attitudinal Change

 “Implicit" attitudes are unconscious unacknowledged attitudes external to a

person’s awareness which nonetheless have measurable effects on people’s
response times to stimuli.

 An Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT): Participants make split-second decision whether to

“shoot” intruders in a video game based on whether or not they are holding a
gun; many people exhibit an implicit bias toward blacks

 A person’s conscious views toward people, objects, or concepts. That is, the
person is aware of the feelings he or she holds in a certain context

 Example: His grandfather is unapologetically racist; the man makes no attempt to

hide his negative views toward members of various ethnic minorities
 Factors Affecting Attitude Change

Attitudes can be changed through persuasion (Carl Hovland, at Yale

University)

• Target Characteristics: characteristics that refer to the person who receives

and processes a message.

• One such trait is intelligence - it seems that more intelligent people are
less easily persuaded by one-sided messages.

• Another variable is self-esteem. People of moderate self-esteem are more

easily persuaded than both those of high and low self-esteem levels
(Rhodes & Woods, 1992).
 Factors Affecting Attitude Change

• Source Characteristics: The major source characteristics are expertise,

trustworthiness and interpersonal attraction. The credibility of a perceived
message has been found to be a key variable here (Hovland & Weiss)

• If one reads a report about health and believes it came from a

professional medical journal, one may be more easily persuaded than if
one believes it is from a popular newspaper.
 Factors Affecting Attitude Change
Cognitive Routes: A message can appeal to an individual's cognitive
evaluation to help change an attitude.

 Central route processes require a great deal of thought, and are likely to
predominate under conditions that promote high elaboration. Central route
processes involve careful scrutiny of a persuasive communication to
determine the merits of the arguments

 Peripheral route processes, rely on environmental characteristics of the

message, like the perceived credibility of the source, quality of the way in
which it is presented, the attractiveness of the source, or the catchy slogan
 Two factors influencing the route an individual will take in a persuasive
situation are:

 Motivation (strong desire to process the message; e.g., Petty & Cacioppo,
1979)

 Ability (actually being capable of critical evaluation; e.g., Petty, Wells, &
Brock, 1976)
 Factors Affecting Attitude Change

In the central route to persuasion the individual is presented with the data
and motivated to evaluate the data and arrive at an attitude changing
conclusion.
 Attitude Change via Peripheral Route

• In the peripheral route to attitude change, the individual is encouraged to

not look at the content but at the source. Seen in modern advertisements
that feature celebrities.
 Processing Model of Attitude Change
 In the Elaboration Likelihood Model, or ELM, (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986),
cognitive processing is the central route and affective/emotion processing
is often associated with the peripheral route.

 The central route pertains to an elaborate cognitive processing of

information while peripheral route relies on cues or feelings. The ELM
suggests that true attitude change only happens through the central
processing route to the more heuristics-based peripheral route.

 This suggests that motivation through emotion alone will not result in an
attitude change (Burger King example)
 Conscious competence learning model - stages of learning -
unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence

• The conscious competence model is a useful reminder of the need to

learn, and train others, in stages.

• The learner or trainee always begins at stage 1 - 'unconscious

incompetence', and ends at stage 4 - 'unconscious competence', having
passed through stage 2 - 'conscious incompetence' and - 3 'conscious
competence'.
 Conscious competence learning matrix

Unconscious Incompetence
• The individual does not understand or know how to do something and
does not necessarily recognize the deficit.

• They may deny the usefulness of the skill.

• The individual must recognize their own incompetence, and the value of
the new skill, before moving on to the next stage.

• The length of time an individual spends in this stage depends on the

strength of the stimulus to learn.
 The VARK Category Model

Visual (V):
• Includes depiction of information in maps, spider diagrams, charts, graphs,
flow charts, labeled diagrams, and all the symbolic arrows, circles,
hierarchies and other devices, that people use to represent what could
have been presented in words.

• It does NOT include still pictures or photographs of reality, movies, videos

or PowerPoint. It does include designs, whitespace, patterns, shapes and
the different formats that are used to highlight and convey information.

• When a trainer moves to the whiteboard and draws a diagram with

meaningful symbols for the relationship between different things that will
be helpful for those with a Visual preference.
Aural / Auditory (A):
• This perceptual mode describes a preference for information that is
"heard or spoken."

• Trainees with this as their main preference report that they learn best
from lectures, group discussion, radio, email, using mobile phones,
speaking, web-chat and talking things through.

• Email is included here because; although it is text and could be included in

the Read/write category (below), it is often written in chat-style with
abbreviations, colloquial terms, slang and non-formal language. This
preference includes talking out loud as well as talking to oneself.
Read/write (R):
• This preference is for information displayed as words.

• This preference emphasizes text-based input and output - reading and

writing in all its forms but especially essays, reports and assignments.

• People who prefer this modality are often addicted to PowerPoint, the
Internet, lists, diaries, dictionaries, quotations and words

• Note that most PowerPoint presentations and the Internet, GOOGLE and
Wikipedia are essentially suited to those with this preference as there is
seldom an auditory channel or a presentation that uses Visual symbols as
described above.
Kinesthetic (K):
• By definition, this modality refers to the "perceptual preference related to
the use of experience and practice (simulated or real).“

• The key is that people who prefer this mode are connected to reality,
"either through concrete personal experiences, examples, practice or
simulation" [Fleming & Mills, 1992, pp. 140-141].

• Includes demonstrations, simulations, videos and movies of "real" things,

as well as case studies, practice and applications. The key is the reality or
concrete nature of the example
THANK YOU!