Do You Know How Your Employees Learn?

Source: The CPA Journal 

In this article, authors Clement C. Chen, Keith T. Jones, and Keith Moreland examine different learning styles and discuss the implications for both accounting education and practice. For CPA firms, understanding employees' learning styles can help them design more effective training and continuing education programs.

The authors focus on people with four main learning styles:

• Diverging. They tend to learn by combining concrete experience with reflective observation, considering information from many different points of view and processing information through observation and feeling.
• Assimilating. They generally learn by combining reflective observation and abstract conceptualization, preferring to put information into a simple, logical form.
• Converging. They combine abstract conceptualization with active experimentation, preferring to find practical uses for concepts.
• Accommodating. They combine concrete experience with active experimentation, learning through “hands-on” experience.

The authors go on to discuss the impact of delivery method and age, as well as differences based on gender and major. For example, online students tend to be convergers, while traditional students tend to be assimilators.

For the complete article, read “Differences in Learning Styles: Implications for Accounting Education and Practice.”

From The CPA Journal, A Publication of the New York State Society of CPAs, August 2014, http://www.cpajournal.com.