Majority Of Americans Prefer Hands-On Training In Educational Settings, Survey Finds

Career College Central summary:

For a majority of Americans, hands-on training is the hands-down winner when it comes to learning something new in an educational environment. According to data released this week in the 2014 Learning in America Survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Everest College, 52% of Americans listed active participation through hands-on training as the best learning method. In the telephone survey of 1,011 adults, visual demonstrations shown by an instructor finished second (28%), followed by reading from a text book (23%), using the Internet (19%), collaborating with fellow students (17%), learning by teaching others (16%), listening to a lecture (16%), and watching videos (15%).
While hands-on training was the No. 1 learning method for both men and women, men (56%) were significantly more likely than women (47%) to say hands-on training works best for them. The other major difference between the sexes was that women (32%) were significantly more likely than men (25%) to say visual demonstrations work best for them.
After hands-on training, the Internet was a big favorite as a learning tool among top earners, according to the survey. Those with household incomes of more than $100,000 were more likely to say using the Internet (30%) was a learning method that worked best for them compared with those with household incomes less than $35,000 (18%).
Older Americans gave high marks to books, as 28% of the survey participants aged 45 to 54 chose reading from a text book as a top learning method compared with just 15% of those aged 35 to 44. When it came to the choice of listening to a lecture, 20% of college graduates said it was the method that worked best for them, compared with 11% of respondents who had a high school education or less. College graduates also ranked collaborating with fellow students significantly higher (20% vs. 13%) than those with a high school education or less.
- By the Numbers: 2014 Learning in America Survey Fast Facts:
- Watching videos as a method for learning was more popular among men than women by a margin of 18% to 13%.
- Regionally, respondents who live in the Midwest were more likely to choose listening to a lecture (21%), compared with those in the South (12%).
- Hispanics were significantly more likely to say visual demonstration by an instructor (40%) was a top learning method, compared with whites (27%).
Everest College's 2014 Learning in America Survey was conducted by telephone within the United States by Harris Interactive between December 12 and December 15, 2013, among 1,011 Americans aged 18 and over. Results were weighted for age, sex, geographic region, and race when necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

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