[hluska]

My experience with self help books is quite similar to my experience with people who read "Learn how to program" books. Some people go into the book with a head full of steam, but they give up as soon as things get hard. Other people start with the same enthusiasm, but they push through the difficult parts and (eventually) become great programmers.

The best educational materials I've ever read always start from the perspective that what you're about to learn is freakishly hard and it will take hard work to gain even a modicum of skill. Tragically, writing that on the cover of a book would likely kill sales.

As a reader though, I like to remind myself that I'm embarking on a voyage of learning, not one of already knowing. I remind myself that this is going to take a whole lot of work and that I will be frustrated many times. As long as I'm willing to do the homework, I can learn how to do almost anything.

As for your third question, you'll find tremendous variance as people have a number of different learning styles. I'd argue that any kind of personal change would work similarly to expert performance, so I suspect that the best medium is whatever medium does the best job of encouraging deliberate practice.

[jakubp]

You write that people have a number of different learning styles. What do you mean by learning styles? What kinds are there?

[ampersandy]

VAK(T): Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, (Tactile). It's been argued that tactile and kinesthetic learners can be lumped into the same group, hence the parentheses. It's also hard to define exactly what the differences between the two are.

[jakubp]

[this is a digression on learning styles]

Ah. The VAK model. I looked briefly for scientific support for this "theory" on the Internet, but I couldn't really find any. Wikipedia suggested it's a theory with little to no support, and other locations didn't show ANYTHING that would convince me such a thing as "visual" or "auditory" learners exist. Below is a bit of my thinking on the subject.

I am inclined to think that these "learning styles" are bogus, that every person can and will learn in many different "styles" depending on the situation, specifically it's been shown that every normal (and even very young) human can learn just by observing other people's behavior. (One of the classics - Bandura: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observational_learning)

I met many people (mostly in the soft skills training circles, same people who tend to work in psychodynamic therapy systems but went to business training for the money) who claim that "there are people of different learning styles and you should take that into account when instructing them/teaching them", but when I ask about details, nobody can explain what's the difference between these learning styles, and what is the belief that they even exist based on (e.g. a "source" :).

I could go on, but I think you get the point :)

While I do understand people may consciously prefer certain learning _settings_ (much more than a "style"), I doubt it's the categorization of a learner that makes or breakes such a complicated topic as "changing a habit" or "making a change in life" [based on a book / other 'intervention'].

[edit: read up the Criticism section on this Wikipedia page if you are interested in the validity of auditory/visual/kinesthetic model - VAK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles]

[groby_b]

I can definitely confirm the existence of visual/kinesthetic learners (in the limited realm of dancing). I've worked as a dance coach, and there's a distinct grouping into people who need to see steps demonstrated, and people who need to be guided through steps.

I can also confirm that people communicate in a way that describes the world in visual/auditory/kinesthetic terms, and people often have a preferred mode of communication. As a result, it is often helpful to choose a similar mode of communication. (My personal speculation: Not because that's their learning style, but because it is a more familiar kind of speech. What you say becomes more relatable)

But I certainly do agree with you that the "learning style" model is oversimplified, and can't be applied as such in many settings. (How on earth do you teach computer science in a kinesthetic way? ;)

[jakubp]

Very interesting information about dancing, thanks for sharing that!

I can see how people have _preferences_. If something is new & hard (a possible definition for learning), I would imagine we instinctively look for ways to make progress with minimum amount of effort. So in that sense we may have learning styles, but that wouldn't mean permantent or exclusive style. Other ways could work for us, too, but over the years we practiced certain style more than others and so we choose whenever we can (it's efficient/pleasant).

So perhaps simple familiarity of a way to learn might be the source of the whole idea and its appeal.

I can see how poorly designed scientific research would even validate learning styles in that sense without uncovering that everyone can actually learn in every way, they just choose not to for local efficiency.