Understanding the complexity of learners

Most of our strategies for dealing with difference have involved - though the terms are never used - ideas about disaggregating the market. That is, we've identified sub-populations who are believed to have distinct patterns of needs and then sought to provide them with different or additional services. More recently, we've started to appreciate that these sub-populations are not homogeneous and that we need to adopt more informed means of identifying groups at risk and understanding the nature of that risk if we are to achieve equitable outcomes (e.g. McIntyre, 2000). Unfortunately, the task of recognising special needs groups is made difficult because the complexity of the relationships between demographic factors can mask patterns in the information we have to hand. This is further compounded when we are dealing with the huge numbers enrolled in post-compulsory schooling or VET. In recent years, techniques have been developed within the disciplines of marketing and health planning that seem that may be adaptable to post-compulsory education. In this paper, those techniques are introduced and some examples from VET and post-compulsory schooling are given. The examples suggest that it may become possible to 'customise' learning programs for a range of groups beyond those 'at risk'.