Adult Learner Interview - Assignment Example

In order to gather the Adult Learning experience of a person above 25 years of age, it is necessary for the interviewer to know the background of the person. I chose Henry a young man of 27 for the interview process. The person has a graduation degree in management and presently he is working as the customer care professional in a software development firm. The firm deals with various orders placed by local, regional and global clients. Henry’s work is to handle the phone calls, queries and the complaints of the clients.

Some clients even visit their office for making complaints. At those times, Henry finds it really difficult to tackle the client since the client talks about all the technical parts which are totally unknown to Henry. This is a small firm and therefore it doesn’t conduct any formal training program for the employees. Henry was only instructed to learn the basics about the software firm and its components from his co-workers. However at present Henry and some of his colleague who deals with the customer on a regular basis is facing trouble regarding the technical know-how.

Considering the difficulties faced by these staff members of the firm, the manager of the customer care department arranged for a training session. When I approached Henry for knowing his learning experience he recalled the training session faced by him. The interview went on as follows- Me-Why the training was necessary? Henry- The training helped me a lot to know about the various aspects of software and it was necessary because as a customer care executive for me it is of utmost importance to get a clear idea of the issues faced by the customer.

Until and unless I understand the issue, I won’t be able to extend my helping hand and for that I needed to learn the basics about software development. Me- Which equipments had been implemented in imparting the training? Henry- The training was imparted by the means of lectures, manuals, handouts, slide shows and white boards. Me- Which equipment proved to be most helpful and least helpful according to you? Henry- Well, the slideshows were excellent. It proved to be the most helpful equipment.

It seemed that I am actually working with those software components and I can still recall all the slides. However I found the lecture method to be very boring and time consuming which ultimately failed to have a prominent impact on my mind. Me- Did you find the trainer proficient enough for providing this kind of corporate training? Henry- The trainer was no doubt a very well educated person who has thorough knowledge of human behavior as well as software. He kept on experimenting with all the possible methods of training and observed our feedback, attitude and responses minutely.

At intervals he used to ask the trainees, “shall I continue with this method or shall I switch?” In this way, throughout two weeks of training he kept on gathering the responses from us and it resulted in a friendly and cooperative relationship among the trainer and the trainee. Me- Did you receive a practical training? Henry- yes on the second week of the training program we shifted from the seminar room to the software development lab where we were provided with a chance to explore the things.

A kind of vestibule training had been arranged for us, where we were shown which software performs what functions. We were amazed to see such a great assortment of software, each delivering some definite benefit and each served several groups of clients, some having their own business and some working for another bigger software firm. From the above discussion we can conclude that Henry is much inclined towards the Visual style of learning since he paid more attention to the slides, charts and diagrams and found those interesting.

However the visual style has two subparts namely Spatial and Linguistic. In this case Henry demonstrates the traits of a visual-spatial learner who learns when the lecture is delivered by the means of visual aids. The theory applicable here is the Social Learning Theory where people tend to learn things from experience and observation. In the context of the learning process undergone by Henry, it can be stated that during the first few months of his profession he gathered knowledge by observing others and then facing the clients on his own.

Later, the training acted as a value addition for him which would help him to excel his customer handling skills further. Thus the cognitive theory of learning proves to be most suitable for Henry where the person learns through various mental processes and alternative problem solving skills are also developed by the means of this theory.