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Peter Honey presents this article as a contribution to our management training project. Frequently, throughout the project and elsewhere, we have made the point that the intention of the trainer should be to engineer, for the trainee, effective job‐oriented learning experiences. The traditional way of carrying out all training above the manual level has been by organising courses and other forms of direct instruction. In our project we have shown how some go‐ahead firms and colleges have succeeded in escaping from the course obsession. Organising courses is the easy option. But to create effective learning situations which are meaningful in terms of the job calls for much more effort, imagination and innovation. Thus it has come about that formal courses, as the means of improving manager performance, are not merely suspect but are near to falling into disrepute. Peter Honey here states the case against formal, conventional courses, in the field of managing the human resource. Indeed, in this refreshingly‐light contribution, he might even be suspected of OVER‐STATING the case. If this is so, and provided his article drives home the point, we welcome his offering as a worthy contribution to our management training project. Editor

About three years ago we (Peter Honey as the outside consultant and Nigel Povah as ICL's inside skills trainer) were commissioned to design a self development workshop for ICL's sales force. Since then we have run ten workshops for about 100 participants and the amount of learning has been impressive and reactions very favourable.

Reflects on e‐learning with respect to other forms of learning and endeavours to put it into perspective given the extent to which it is currently being hyped. Appraises e‐learning from the point of view of the learner given certain assumptions. Attempts to provide a balanced picture of the pros and cons of e‐learning. Contends that the e‐learning industry is overselling its merits and not focusing appropriately on the learner’s needs. Concludes with some practical suggestions for improving e‐learning performance and acceptance.

E‐learning is about seven years old and like a seven‐year‐old child, it is immature, but offers considerable promise. Organizations like it because it promises to save them money on training. Employees like it because they have greater control over when they do the training. But as with the dotcom craze, e‐learning is now entering a period of reassessment, where the poor examples will probably disappear and the survivors will hopefully improve their offerings.

Aims to describe a variety of journal‐writing processes and how they have been used with students in a graduate course in human resource development; describes possible causes of learning and writing blocks and how they can be overcome; evaluates the creative journal process by describing advantages, disadvantages and issues from both the students′ and the lecturers′ perspectives; and offers suggestions for people who use the journal process.

Ever since Peter Honey published The Manual of Learning Styles (with Alan Mumford) in 1982 he has been intrigued with the possibility of learning from any experience. Experiences come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some are sought, some just happen, some are welcome, some are decidedly unwelcome, some are stimulating, some are boring. As someone who is intrigued with the process of learning from experience, and who views “life” as just one experience after another, Peter Honey finds it easy to believe that everything that happens has learning potential. Imagine his delight, therefore, when in 1984 he was approached by Roger Lobley and John Bishop of ICI's Petrochemicals and Plastics Division and invited to work with them, and senior staff from the Outward Bound School at Eskdale, Cumbria, on the design of a programme that used outdoor activities as a vehicle to help in the development of learning skills and a structured approach to interpersonal skills.

PETER HONEY So we come to the last DIS article in the series and I must say how nice it is to produce it this way — by relaxing around a tape recorder instead of slaving away putting pen to paper! As you all know, the idea is to have a free‐ranging conversation about the future of DIS work. We shall probably find that we have some similar ideas about future developments, but there will surely be some different ones also. It is no part of our purpose to reach absolute agreement about what the future holds — indeed, it would all look surprisingly rigged if we did! The previous articles in the series have, for the most part, been concerned with describing a number of techniques such as behaviour analysing, feeding back and mixing. I thought it might be best to start our conversation in this area and gradually build up to some of the wider, and wilder, ideas we might have about how these techniques could be used to good effect. Nigel, perhaps you would like to tell us about how you see these basic techniques developing in the work of your management training team in ICL?

Peter Honey and Alan Mumford published in December 1982 The Manual of Learning Styles which brought to a wider audience the advantages of a determination of the different preferences of people for the way they learn. The approach suggested by Honey and Mumford was not completely new, but offered an alternative approach to the other major learning style inventory, that by Kolb. A number of people had been unhappy with the construction and results of Kolb's Learning Style Inventory and it had been positively attacked from an academic viewpoint by Freedman and Stumpf.

Contains a critique of Honey and Mumford′s learning style theory, while recognizing its pioneering achievements. Questions what Honey and Mumford mean by learning and experience and explores the validity of viewing experience as the primary “motor” of learning. Raises doubts about the sequence of the learning cycle as depicted by Honey and Mumford. Asks: Does the learning styles questionnaire meaningfully measure learning preferences or is it more accurately a personality questionnaire? What do certain questionnaire scores mean, e.g. low scores across the spectrum? Do not certain subjects and situations prescribe the learning approach regardless of one′s preference?

I am besotted with behaviour! Virtually anything to do with the way people behave, its externalcauses and its externaleffects, has me hooked. I can think of few things more fascinating than unravelling the connections between external events and observable behaviour. Yet I find my enthusiasm is rarely shared by my colleagues in training or personnel. Too often they accuse me of being superficial, manipulative and inhuman. If all else fails they tell me behaviourism is just common sense!