One common tenet of the various instructional design models is the consideration of learner characteristics. Learning is more effective when the learner is not treated generically. In fact, all learners are unique.

There are multiple considerations when addressing learner characteristics, including the following, each of which are described more fully elsewhere on this website.

• The attitudes of learners towards many different things can affect learning transfer. Often, the most important factor in how much students learn is their motivation to learn. Attitudes can, in fact, completely sabotage all attempts at knowledge transfer.

• Adults tend to benefit more from certain learning strategies, and non-adults from others. Similarly, children at various stages of cognitive development benefit more or less from various approaches, and may completely lack the ability to grasp concepts as an adult would. Certain accommodations also make sense for senior citizens.

• Learning styles vary between various learners, but are extremely difficult to accommodate. Much research has been done on learning styles, and many have been identified (it is fair to say that attempts to define more than a handful of learning styles is dubious at best, but it has been done nonetheless). The advice here is that it may be beneficial to try to accommodate both an auditory and visual style in some training content (especially eLearning) because some people learn better by hearing.
  
• Instructional design models emphasize what students do and do not already know. In practice, this can be difficult and impractical to address fully. However, as Instructional Designers, we can use "fuzzy logic" to make reasonable assumptions about how this critical parameter should be addressed.

There are some very novel things that can be done in eLearning with relatively low effort to accommodate learner differences, so err on the side of identifying some opportunities here. For  ILT, it is not unreasonable to make this a low priority. Remember that for ILT, the instructor can make accommodations “on the fly.”

One common tenet of the various instructional design models is the consideration of learner characteristics. Learning is more effective when the learner is not treated generically. In fact, all learners are unique.

There are multiple considerations when addressing learner characteristics, including the following, each of which are described more fully elsewhere on this website.

• The attitudes of learners towards many different things can affect learning transfer. Often, the most important factor in how much students learn is their motivation to learn. Attitudes can, in fact, completely sabotage all attempts at knowledge transfer.

• Adults tend to benefit more from certain learning strategies, and non-adults from others. Similarly, children at various stages of cognitive development benefit more or less from various approaches, and may completely lack the ability to grasp concepts as an adult would. Certain accommodations also make sense for senior citizens.

• Learning styles vary between various learners, but are extremely difficult to accommodate. Much research has been done on learning styles, and many have been identified (it is fair to say that attempts to define more than a handful of learning styles is dubious at best, but it has been done nonetheless). The advice here is that it may be beneficial to try to accommodate both an auditory and visual style in some training content (especially eLearning) because some people learn better by hearing.
  
• Instructional design models emphasize what students do and do not already know. In practice, this can be difficult and impractical to address fully. However, as Instructional Designers, we can use "fuzzy logic" to make reasonable assumptions about how this critical parameter should be addressed.

There are some very novel things that can be done in eLearning with relatively low effort to accommodate learner differences, so err on the side of identifying some opportunities here. For  ILT, it is not unreasonable to make this a low priority. Remember that for ILT, the instructor can make accommodations “on the fly.”