Step 1: Recall the epidemiology: in grown patients the elbow ranks just behind the shoulder for dislocation frequency, and in children it is the joint most often dislocated.
Step 2: When direction is asked, the dominant pattern is posterior displacement, accounting for well over nine in ten cases.
Step 3: Anatomically the ulnar coronoid process slips out from under the humeral trochlea and the forearm shifts behind the humerus, the classic posterior configuration.
Step 4: This typically follows a fall on an extended, outstretched hand. The remaining options describe rarer variants, so the single most common direction is posterior.
\[\boxed{\text{Posterior}}\]