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Author Topic: The Myth of "Learning Styles"  (Read 765 times)

ergophobe

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The Myth of "Learning Styles"
« on: May 20, 2019, 05:18:38 PM »
Add the "learning styles" (visual, auditory, etc) to Myers-Briggs as "stuff we know to be true that was actually invented out of thin air by people sitting around a kitchen table with no research whatsoever to back it up."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-learning-styles/ (well, you could have added it to that list in 2018 if I had read this earlier).

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Despite knowing their own, self-reported learning preferences, nearly 70% of students failed to employ study techniques that supported those preferences. Most visual learners did not rely heavily on visual strategies (e.g., diagrams, graphics), nor did most reading/writing learners rely predominantly on reading strategies (e.g., review of notes or textbook), and so on. Given the prevailing belief that learning styles matter, and the fact many students blame poor academic performance on the lack of a match between their learning style and teachers’ instructional methods, one might expect students to rely on techniques that support their personal learning preferences when working on their own.

Perhaps the best students do. Nearly a third of the students in the study did choose strategies that were consistent with their reported learning style. Did that pay off? In a word, no. Students whose study strategies aligned with their VARK scores performed no better in either the lecture or lab component of the course.
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buckworks

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Re: The Myth of "Learning Styles"
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2019, 07:33:02 PM »
An interesting complement to that article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/16/howard-gardner-multiple-intelligences-are-not-learning-styles/

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The fields of psychology and education were revolutionized 30 years ago when the now world-renowned psychologist Howard Gardner published his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences,” which detailed a new model of human intelligence that went beyond the traditional view that there was a single kind that could be measured by standardized tests ...

Gardner’s theory initially listed seven intelligences which  work together: linguistic, logical-mathematical,  musical,  bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal; he later added an eighth, naturalist intelligence and says there may be a few more.  The theory became highly popular with K-12 educators around the world seeking ways to reach students who did not respond to traditional approaches, but over time, “multiple intelligences” somehow became synonymous with the concept of “learning styles.”

(emphasis mine)

When I was teaching in community college the concept of "multiple intelligences" and different "learning styles" were A Very Big Deal. As teachers we were encouraged to present our material in a variety of ways, with the goal of making it more easily accessible to various types of intelligence. That's easier for some topics than others but if nothing else, the effort probably made our classes more interesting.
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littleman

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Re: The Myth of "Learning Styles"
« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2019, 04:02:39 PM »
I don't have anything but anecdotel evidence for myself and kids I've worked with, but I believe that people who are not neurotypical probably do have a preferred way of learning that corresponds to what actually works for them.
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ergophobe

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Re: The Myth of "Learning Styles"
« Reply #3 on: May 21, 2019, 11:52:51 PM »
>>Howard Gardenr

Interestingly, I sent this to a friend via email at the same time and his response was:

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But the basic "research" came from Howard Gardner (Theory of multiple intelligences) - he proposed 7 but felt that the main point was that it wasn’t 1 .

There's no doubt different minds work in different ways and different people have different preferred ways of learning things. To me, the big dichotomy is whether you are more deductive or inductive. In my case, I prefer to learn a new natural or programming language by just starting. Some people learn faster by reading the spec of studying the grammar.

But as Buckworks noted, if you've spent any time in education, you've been told there are Four Learning Styles and that these learning styles are, based on research, Visual Auditory, Read/Write and Kinesthetic like it was some research-based pedagogical tool proven to reach more students.

But like Myers-Briggs, the research just doesn't bear this out.
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