BlogHer Recap: More Studies Needed

I'm a solitary learner

The obvious top story of BlogHer '10 focused squarely on a charming ten-year-old boy and his aunt and their rather eventful commute and their fundraiser.  And the most frequently used word I heard to describe the conference was "overwhelming" - so many people, so many vendors, so many parties, so much stuff.

I didn't really have much to do with any of that - though I did enjoy catching up with a few people. Instead, I spent my time introducing bloggers to Dr. Angie McQuaig from University of Phoenix (my client) and we discussed the importance of learning styles. And it was actually pretty cool.

As I mentioned earlier, people learn in different ways - some by listening, some by doing, some by reading, and so on.  University of Phoenix is looking at ways to provide material that fits best with the way the individual student learns.  There is a lot of research out there on learning styles - there are several different methods and the field is constantly evolving.  We used a tool that lists seven learning styles - visual, aural, verbal, physical, logical, social, and solitary.  I found a quick explanation of each style here:

• Visual (spatial). You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
• Aural (auditory-musical). You prefer using sound and music.
• Verbal (linguistic). You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.
• Physical (kinesthetic). You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.
• Logical (mathematical). You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.
• Social (interpersonal). You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.
• Solitary (intrapersonal). You prefer to work alone and use self-study.

You can actually have more than one dominant learning style.  I'm a solitary learner but I'm also a verbal learner and a social learner.  Bloggers took a short quiz and learned their own learning style and got some information on it.  For fun, we also aggregated and displayed the quiz results in real time - and that's when Dr. McQuaig noticed something interesting. 

Dr. McQuaig told me that the most common learning style is visual.  This shouldn't come as a big surprise. Aural and physical learning styles are the next most common.  But look at how the BlogHer folks did:

The visual learning style was actually the least common of the bloggers who took the quiz. The most common learning style for these bloggers was verbal - and it was no contest.  Verbal learners were followed by social learners and solitary learners. (The percentages work out to more than 100 because again, a person can have more than one learning style.)

Now, this is by no means a scientific survey, and Dr. McQuaig would be the first person to say that.  Researchers would go on about things like selection bias and so on, and they'd be right.  There's no way we could say this quiz represents all bloggers.  There's no way we could say it represents all women bloggers.  We couldn't even say this represents all women bloggers who attend blogging conferences.   But we got enough people to take the quiz that I do think we may have stumbled on to a rather interesting research idea.  

If someone could demonstrate a significant difference in the learning styles of bloggers or even a particular type of blogger, it would certainly have an impact on people in my line of work.  If I'm designing a blogger outreach campaign, I want the material I use to be as accessible as possible to the people I'm trying to reach.  If they're verbal learners, for example, I'm more likely to use tools that allow bloggers to both see and hear words, and make use of acronyms.    And it's not just bloggers vs. the general population - if say, mom bloggers are verbal learners while science bloggers are logical learners and political bloggers are visual learners, the tactics I employ may vary for each.

Just a thought.

Dude Looks Like A BlogHer

I’ll be attending BlogHer later this week, my first time there since 2007.  A lot has happened since then, and sadly, not so much has changed since then.   I’m looking forward to catching up with some bloggers I met there (or knew before then) and have stayed in touch with ever since.

This year I’m there on behalf of University of Phoenix.  They’re sponsoring the BlogHer Job Lab, which will be offering workshops on resume and social network profile writing, offline networking for bloggers, authenticity vs. TMI,  networking with a purpose, social media skills in today’s job market, and partnering with PR firms.

University of Phoenix is trying to tailor its offering to better fit the personal learning styles of its students.  Some people learn by doing, others by listening, others by watching.   Some people learn best in groups.  (Turns out I’m a “solitary learner.”) When you present material in ways that better fit a student’s learning style, you give that student a better shot at retaining that information.  University of Phoenix will be using this learning style assessment with a number of other self-assessment tools so people can get information in the format that works best for them.  Dr. Angie McQuaig is an expert on this topic and she’ll be at the conference. If you see the hashtag #HowDoYouLearn on twitter, that’s us.

At the conference we’ll be inviting bloggers to identify their own learning styles by taking a short online quiz and we’ll be explaining more about how this works.  You can take the quiz here if you like (no, you won’t be put on some freaky email list and you won’t be spammed by anyone) and get information on your learning style.  It only takes a couple of minutes, and it’s impossible to flunk.

Kinda cool, right?