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02: Why you can't always get what you want

Scott Goodacre

Scott Goodacre

— 4 min read
02: Why you can't always get what you want
You can't always get your own way

I would say that I divide my working time fairly evenly between marketing and teaching. The marketing side is pretty broad - web development, content writing, Google Ads, strategy work - but it informs what goes into my teaching, where I deliver formal qualifications and help local business owners understand the basics of concepts such as SEO.

Both professions have their own myths, and I’m going to draw a link between some of the bigger ones in each to make a point I regularly make when I’m delivering training.

In teaching, this is the idea that everyone has their own ‘preferred learning style’.

Debunking a neuromyth

You might be familiar with preferred learning styles. It’s the theory that people can self-assess and then categorise themselves as only retaining information when it’s presented in a certain way, usually one of three:

  • Visual (you like seeing things, such as YouTube videos and demonstrations, or reading 👋).
  • Auditory (you like listening to podcasts, lectures, and having things explained to you).
  • Kineaesthetic (you’re more tactile, like to get hands on with stuff and do it yourself).

(One study has found that there are over 70 different models of learning styles, but nobody’s got the time or space for that. There’s also VARK which is more widely used. But I’ve kept it to 3 for ease.)

Unfortunately, as research and evidence has proved, these bear little resemblance to how people actually learn and retain information. And identifying them - and making learners aware - can actually have a detrimental effect on learning.

I once had a business owner approach me over the lunch break of a full day session to tell me they were having to leave because the information was not being delivered in their preferred learning style.

By having a preference for how they wanted to receive information, they were on the defensive from the start. It means that learners don’t try and engage with the subject matter as they’re already defeated: “what’s the point in engaging with this if it’s not the way that I best process information?”. That’s not a good starting point.

The way something is taught needs to be adapted to the subject, rather than trying to be shoehorned into a format that doesn’t fit. And a good session naturally takes into consideration different styles of learning by delivering information in a variety of ways.

When I’m teaching people about software, such as how to manage the back-end of a website or write HTML, I get them to do it. I could talk to them about it at length, but it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t make sense until you’re doing it yourself. And that way I can also check that it’s being done correctly and has been understood. Even you identify as an auditory learner, I feel that to properly understand how coding and logic work you need to experience it.

That’s borne out of more than 10 years of delivering sessions to people of all abilities and backgrounds.

One study actually taught learners to their preferred style, but found that they achieved the same results as the group who were taught using a mix of approaches. If the preferred learning style was accurate, then you’d have expected those learners to outperform the others.

This, rather poetically, leads me on to marketing.

Pivot!

Social media sites love telling us that we should be presenting information in certain ways, and there are countless studies that try to prove that if we produce a certain type of content we’ll sell more widgets, have a better business, and be more attractive to people (I may have made that last one up).

I’m regularly asked by business owners about whether they should be producing more video, because they’ve been told in other sessions that’s “what the algorithm wants”.

The problem with this is that algorithms aren’t humans. And algorithms won’t buy your widgets.

The truth is, like preferred learning styles, that there’s a right way and a wrong way to produce content. The right way is the one that works. And to find it, you need to experiment.

Instead - you’ve probably guessed where this is going - businesses should be thinking about the best format for what they’re producing. Why spend weeks on a complicated explainer video when an infographic could get the point across better? Sometimes you need video, sometimes you don’t.

Facebook telling us we need to produce more video is because that keeps more people on Facebook. That gives Facebook data, and that means they can sell more adverts on the platform.

Good content is good content. That should be the focus.

My favourite recent resources

This time round I’m looking at accessibility. We should be creating online experiences that work for everyone, and these will help.

Read more