Determinants of Learning - HE

• The educator's role in the learning process

  • Assessing problems or deficits
  • Providing information in unique ways
  • Identifying progress made
  • Giving feedback and follow-up
  • Reinforcing learning
• The educator's unique position


  Vital in giving support, encouragement, and direction during the learning process
• The educator's role


  Assists in identifying optimal learning approaches and activities that can both support and challenge the learner
• Determinants of learning

  • Learning Needs
  • Readiness to Learn
  • Learning Style
• Assessment of learning needs

  1. Identify the learner

  2. Choose the right setting

  3. Collect data about, and from, the learner

  4. Involve members of the healthcare team

  5. Prioritize needs
• Criteria for prioritizing learning needs

  • Mandatory: Needs that must be learned for survival or when learner's life or safety is threatened
  • Desirable: Needs that are not life dependent but are related to well-being or quality care
  • Possible: Needs for information that are nice to know but not essential or required because they are not directly related to daily activities
• Methods to assess learning needs


  • Informal conversations
  • Structured interviews
  • Focus groups
  • Questionnaires
  • Tests
  • Observations
  • Documentation
• Assessing learning needs of nursing staff


  • Written job descriptions
  • Formal and informal requests
  • Quality assurance reports
  • Chart audits
  • Rules and regulations
  • Self-assessment
  • Gap analysis
• Determining readiness to learn

  Optimal learning time is when the learner asks a question. Learner is receptive, willing, able to participate in learning process
• Types of readiness to learn

  • Physical readiness
  • Emotional readiness
  • Experiential readiness
  • Knowledge readiness
• Readiness to learn components

  • Physical readiness: measures of ability, complexity of task, environmental effects, health status, gender
  • Emotional readiness: anxiety level, support system, motivation, risk-taking behavior, frame of mind, developmental stage
  • Experiential readiness: level of aspiration, past coping mechanisms, cultural background, locus of control
  • Knowledge readiness: present knowledge base, cognitive ability, learning disabilities, learning styles
• Learning style principles

  • Certain learning characteristics are biological, whereas others are sociologically derived
  • No learning style is inherently better or worse than another
  • Accepting the diversity of learning styles can help educators encourage every individual to reach his or her full potential
• Determining learning styles

  1. Observation, interviews, and learning style instruments

  2. All three techniques should be used

  3. Assessment is best in the educational process

  4. Educators can then support instruction with materials that guide a variety of styles
• Learning style models and instruments

  • Brain Preference Indicator or Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (BPI or HBDI)
  • Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT)
  • Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS)
  • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
  • Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI)
  • 4MAT System
  • Gardner's Eight Types of Intelligence
  • VARK Learning Styles
• Right-brain/left-brain and whole-brain thinking

  Right hemisphere - emotional, visual-spatial, nonverbal

  Left hemisphere - vocal and analytical

  No correct/wrong side of the brain

  Each hemisphere gathers same sensory information, handles it differently

  Educators should employ teaching methods that stimulate both brain sides

  Whole brain - combining both sides of the brain
• Field-independent/field-dependent

  Learners have preference styles for certain environmental cues

  Helps the educator structure the learning task and environment

  Helps assess the extent to which learners are able to ignore distractions from others

  Assesses whether learners see the whole first or the individual parts of a task
• Dunn's learning style options

  • Environmental elements
  • Emotional elements
  • Sociological patterns
  • Physical elements
  • Psychological elements
• 4MAT System


  Combination of Kolb's model with right-/left-brain research

  There are four types of learners

  Educators can address all four learning styles by teaching sequentially from type-one learner to type-two learner, etc.

  Learning sequence is circular and cyclic
• Gardner's eight types of intelligence

  • Linguistic intelligence
  • Musical intelligence
  • Spatial intelligence
  • Logical-mathematical intelligence
  • Bodily kinesthetic intelligence
  • Intrapersonal intelligence
  • Interpersonal intelligence
  • Naturalistic - identified in 1999
• Left Brain

  • Prefers talking and writing
• VARK learning styles

  • Visual
  • Aural
  • Read/write
  • Kinesthetic
• Interpretation of style instruments

  Caution must be exercised in assessing styles so other important learning factors are not ignored

  Styles only describe how individuals process stimuli, not their capabilities

  Style instruments should be selected based on reliability, validity, and population

  More than one learning style instrument should be used for appropriate assessment
• Consider dimensions of evidence framework to decide what is appropriate evidence, where it comes from, and whether all evidence counts
• There is evidence to support the importance of conducting an educational assessment
• Deficit on process and criteria for assessment
• Learning style instruments should be used with caution
• Educational assessment research is difficult
• Left Brain

  • Recognizes/remembers Names
• Left Brain

  • Solves problems by breaking them into parts
• Left Brain

  • Conscious of time and Schedules
• Right Brain

  • Prefers drawing and manipulating objects
• Right Brain

  • Recognizes/remembers Faces
• Right Brain

  • Solves problems by looking at the whole, looks for patterns, uses hunches
• Right Brain

  • Not conscious of time and Schedules