Customer Reviews

Handbook of Individual Differences, Learning, and Instruction

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This is a must for designers of instruction. Jonassen and Grabowski lay out, in a concise way, the range and types of individual differences that interact with learning and instruction. They are able to provide useful design guides for accommodating individual differences into instructional design. This is accomplished by synthesizing a ton of research, theory, and experiences about individual differences into an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-use handbook. Everything discussed in the book is based upon research studies.

I've used this book in my graduate course in Ed Psych for several years. It's getting dated so I might switch soon.

Strengths: The simple summary of each concept is both a strength (quick review) and a weakness (overly simplified). Nice description of ATI and CTI. Lays out many types of learning styles and provides general instructional ideas about meeting those styles. These styles certainly open eyes about all the variety of styles that affect learning, much beyond the typical "visual, auditory, and kinestatic" that school personnel acknowledges. Same format used for each style discussion allows for quick comparisons.
Weaknesses: Research cited are very dated. Instruments listed to assess these styles are even more dated, some not very good. The separation of cognitive controls, cognitive styles, and learning styles seem unnecessarily cumbersome. The continuum in each chapter is sometimes contradictory.
Overall, I really like the breath of the book which gives a great overview of learning and instructional matching, and it looks like it wasn't meant to provide depth on any topic. If the authors update the book...I would certainly buy it again!