ABSTRACT
A human factors researcher conducted a study to determine how different learning styles influenced content retention of a mandatory training given to engineers and designers . The training introduced basics human factors concepts and a proj ect specific Design Guide for their subsequent use. Often, training programs are developed and implemented fol lowing a needs assessment. The effectiveness of the training is simply assumed or assessed brief1y through an immediate post-training questionnaire . Although the initial development was based on research that should improve retention, it may be that an all-inclusive approach to rcach all learning styles is lcss effective than tailoring training to the learning styles of the attendees . This study identified the learning styles of attendees and examined the relationship between thosc learning styles and both the ratings of the course and rctcntion of pertinent course information one month post attendance. These results show that the visual learning style was dominate for this group and an all -inclusive presentation style was not as important to information retention. These results are informative for the design of subsequent courses and design guidelines .
