Personal SWOT Analysis: Evaluating Learning Strengths and Weaknesses

Evaluate personal learning strengths and weaknesses in relation to a learning theory Knowing your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) in relation to studying and learning will enable you to focus your personal development throughout your course. By knowing your strengths, you can focus your efforts on the things you are good at, and by understanding your weaknesses, you know which areas to improve.

Taken together, your strengths and opportunities help you to identify long-term personal goals. Your weaknesses and threats are what determine the likelihood of your success and need to be addressed, or planned for, to ensure that your goals remain achievable.

To begin a personal SWOT analysis, you need to ask yourself the series of questions outlined in the grid below. The results from this analysis should help you to identify the areas that you need to take into consideration when planning your studies, as well as the areas that you can work on throughout your programme.Personal SWOT analysis
Strengths
•    What are you really good at?
•    What skills do other people recognise in you?
•    What do you get recognised and praised for?
•    What about yourself are you most proud of or satisfied with?
•    What experiences, skills and knowledge do you have that others may not have?    

Weaknesses
•    What are the things you’re not so good at or need to improve on?
•    What do you try to do that you just can’t master?
•    What do you only do because you have to?
•    What aspects of your personality are holding you back?
•    What do other people identify as your weaknesses?
•    Where do you lack experience?

Opportunities
•    In what ways can you maximise your strengths?
•    What opportunities are open to you?
•    How can you minimise your weaknesses?
•    Where do you see the most potential growth for yourself?
•    Do you have a mentor who can help you?    Threats
•    Do you have weaknesses that need to be addressed before you can move on?
•    What problems could your weaknesses cause if not dealt with?
•    What setbacks might you face?
•    What obstacles do you need to overcome to get to where you want to be?
 
When completing a personal SWOT analysis, it is recommended to get feedback from other people whilst also including your own thoughts. The advantage of getting feedback from others is that it gives you a more balanced outcome to the analysis and you may find that other people recognise strengths (or weaknesses) in you that you may not be aware of Your personal SWOT analysis You should now make a start on a personal SWOT analysis. The main thing to remember with this particular analysis is that it must include strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that relate to learning, your ability to learn, and studying in general. By focusing on learning, the content of your analysis will be valuable to you over the coming months.You can use a Microsoft Word (or similar) document to write your personal SWOT analysis. This can then be updated as required throughout your studies. You will also be able to upload it for question 2 of the unit assignment.

Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skill that enables us to realise something new or be able to do something that we haven’t done before. Learning is to do with thought and sense making; it is an active process of making meaning out of material we come up against, whether through formal development and training or through experience. Learning is also transferring knowledge into action; it is about developing competence and being able to put knowledge into practice.