Learning styles

Learning styles refer to a range of theories that aim to account for differences in individuals' learning. Although there is ample evidence that individuals express personal preferences on how they prefer to receive information,

The idea of individualized learning styles became popular in the 1970s. This has greatly influenced education despite the criticism that the idea has received from some researchers. Proponents recommend that teachers run a needs analysis to assess the learning styles of their students and adapt their classroom methods to best fit each student's learning style. There are many different types of learning models that have been created and used since the 1970s. Many of the models have similar fundamental ideas and are derived from other existing models, such as the change from the VAK model to the VARK model. However, critics of learning styles claim that there is no consistent evidence that better student outcomes result from identifying individual students' learning style and matching teaching to specific learning styles. Kolb's model outlines two related approaches toward grasping experience: Concrete Experience and Abstract Conceptualization, as well as two related approaches toward transforming experience: Reflective Observation and Active Experimentation.

Accommodator = Concrete Experience + Active Experiment: strong in "hands-on" practical doing (e.g., physical therapists)
Converger = Abstract Conceptualization + Active Experiment: strong in practical "hands-on" application of theories (e.g., engineers)
Diverger = Concrete Experience + Reflective Observation: strong in imaginative ability and discussion (e.g., social workers)
Assimilator = Abstract Conceptualization + Reflective Observation: strong in inductive reasoning and creation of theories (e.g., philosophers)

Kolb's model gave rise to the Learning Style Inventory, an assessment method used to determine an individual's learning style. According to this model, individuals may exhibit a preference for one of the four styles—Accommodating, Converging, Diverging and Assimilating—depending on their approach to learning in Kolb's experiential learning model. Second, they aligned these stages to four learning styles named: Based on this model, the Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ) was developed to allow individuals to assess and reflect on how they consume information and learn from their experiences. It serves as an alternative to Kolb's LSI as it directly asks about common behaviors found in the workplace compared to judging how an individual learns. Having completed the self-assessment, managers are encouraged to focus on strengthening underutilized styles in order to become better equipped to learn from a wide range of everyday experiences. A MORI survey commissioned by The Campaign for Learning in 1999 found the Honey and Mumford LSQ to be the most widely used system for assessing preferred learning styles in the local government sector in the UK.

Learning modalities

Walter Burke Barbe and colleagues proposed three learning modalities (often identified by the acronym VAK):

Visualizing modality
Auditory modality
Kinesthetic modality

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Descriptions of learning modalities

! Visual !! Kinesthetic/tactile !! Auditory

| Picture || Gestures || Listening

| Shape || Body movements || Rhythms

| Sculpture || Object manipulation || Tone

| Paintings || Positioning || Chants

Barbe and colleagues reported that learning modality strengths can occur independently or in combination (although the most frequent modality strengths, according to their research, are visual or mixed), they can change over time, and they become integrated with age. They also pointed out that learning modality strengths are different from preferences; a person's self-reported modality preference may not correspond to their empirically measured modality strength. Nevertheless, some scholars have criticized the VAK model. Psychologist Scott Lilienfeld and colleagues have argued that much use of the VAK model is nothing more than pseudoscience or a psychological urban legend.

Neil Fleming's VAK/VARK model

thumb|Visual representation of the 4 learning styles

Neil Fleming's VARK model and inventory expanded upon earlier notions of sensory modalities such as the VAK model of Barbe and colleagues The four sensory modalities in Fleming's model are:

Visual learning
Aural learning
Reading/writing learning
Kinesthetic learning

While the fifth modality is not considered one of the four learning styles, it covers those who fit equally among two or more areas, or without one frontrunner:

<li>Multimodality (MM)

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Fleming claimed that visual learners have a preference for seeing (visual aids that represent ideas using methods other than words, such as graphs, charts, diagrams, symbols, etc.). Subsequent neuroimaging research has suggested that visual learners convert words into images in the brain and vice versa, but some psychologists have argued that this "is not an instance of learning styles, rather, it is an instance of ability appearing as a style". Likewise, Fleming claimed that auditory learners best learn through listening (lectures, discussions, tapes, etc.), and tactile/kinesthetic learners prefer to learn via experience—moving, touching, and doing (active exploration of the world, science projects, experiments, etc.). Students can use the model and inventory to identify their preferred learning style and, it is claimed, improve their learning by focusing on the mode that benefits them the most. Fleming's model also posits two types of multimodality. This means that not everyone has one defined preferred modality of learning; some people may have a mixture that makes up their preferred learning style. There are two types of multimodality learners: VARK type one learners are able to assimilate their learning style to those around them. VARK type two learners need to receive input or output in all of their preferred styles. They will continue to work until all preferred learning areas have been met.

Gregorc & Butler's model

Anthony Gregorc and Kathleen Butler organized a model describing different learning styles rooted in the way individuals acquire and process information differently. This model posits that an individual's perceptual abilities are the foundation of his or her specific learning strengths, or learning styles.

In this model, there are two perceptual qualities: concrete and abstract, and two ordering abilities: random and sequential. Gregorc argues that his critics have "scientifically-limited views" and that they wrongly repudiate the "mystical elements" of "the spirit" that can only be discerned by a "subtle human instrument".

Cognitive approaches

Anthony Grasha and Sheryl Riechmann, in 1974, formulated the Grasha-Reichmann Learning Style Scale. It was developed to analyze the attitudes of students and how they approach learning. The test was originally designed to provide teachers with insight on how to approach instructional plans for college students. Grasha's background was in cognitive processes and coping techniques. Unlike some models of cognitive styles which are relatively nonjudgmental, Grasha and Riechmann distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive styles. The names of Grasha and Riechmann's learning styles are:

avoidant
participative
competitive
collaborative
dependent
independent

Aiming to explain why aptitude tests, school grades, and classroom performance often fail to identify real ability, Robert Sternberg listed various cognitive dimensions in his book Thinking Styles. Several other models are also often used when researching cognitive styles; some of these models are described in books that Sternberg co-edited, such as Perspectives on Thinking, Learning, and Cognitive Styles.

NASSP model

In the 1980s, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) formed a task force to study learning styles. The task force defined three broad categories of style—cognitive, affective, and physiological—and 31 variables, including the perceptual strengths and preferences from the VAK model of Barbe and colleagues,

Felder and Silverman discovered five areas that affected learning:

Active/Reflective
Visual/Verbal
Sensing/Intuition
Sequential/Global
Inductive/Deductive

They placed each of the opposing areas on a spectrum, stating that when students used the entire spectrum, they achieved optimal learning. In 2002, Felder removed the Inductive and Deductive portion because it did not fit the model well given the differences in inductive and deductive teaching methods. Felder and Silverman placed Active, Visual, Sensing, and Sequential on one side of the spectrum and their counterparts on the opposing side.

Assessment methods

A 2004 non-peer-reviewed literature review criticized most of the main instruments used to identify an individual's learning style. Version 4 of the Learning Style Inventory replaces the four learning styles of previous versions with nine new learning styles: initiating, experiencing, imagining, reflecting, analyzing, thinking, deciding, acting, and balancing. The LSI is intended to help employees or students "understand how their learning style impacts upon problem solving, teamwork, handling conflict, communication and career choice; develop more learning flexibility; find out why teams work well—or badly—together; strengthen their overall learning." Their model interprets learning styles as a balance between pairs of extremes, and the four scores provided by a questionnaire describes these balances. Like the LSI mentioned above, this inventory provides overviews and synopses for teachers.

NASSP Learning Style Profile

The NASSP Learning Style Profile (LSP) is a second-generation instrument for the diagnosis of student cognitive styles, perceptual responses, and study and instructional preferences. The LSP is a diagnostic tool intended as the basis for comprehensive style assessment with students in the sixth to twelfth grades. It was developed by the National Association of Secondary School Principals research department in conjunction with a national task force of learning style experts. The Profile was developed in four phases with initial work undertaken at the University of Vermont (cognitive elements), Ohio State University (affective elements), and St. John's University (physiological/environmental elements). Rigid validation and normative studies were conducted using factor analytic methods to ensure strong construct validity and subscale independence.

The LSP contains 23 scales representing four higher order factors: cognitive styles, perceptual responses, study preferences and instructional preferences (the affective and physiological elements). The LSP scales are: analytic skill, spatial skill, discrimination skill, categorizing skill, sequential processing skill, simultaneous processing skill, memory skill, perceptual response: visual, perceptual response: auditory, perceptual response: emotive, persistence orientation, verbal risk orientation, verbal-spatial preference, manipulative preference, study time preference: early morning, study time preference: late morning, study time preference: afternoon, study time preference: evening, grouping preference, posture preference, mobility preference, sound preference, lighting preference, temperature preference.

Dunn and Dunn

Various researchers have attempted to hypothesize ways in which learning style theory can be used in the classroom. Two such scholars are Rita Dunn and Kenneth Dunn, who build upon a learning modalities approach.

Although learning styles will inevitably differ among students in the classroom, Dunn and Dunn say that teachers should try to make changes in their classroom that will be beneficial to every learning style. Some of these changes include room redesign, the development of small-group techniques, and the development of "contract activity packages". She bases her work on three premises:

Teachers can be learners, and learners teachers. We are all both.
Everyone can learn under the right circumstances.
Learning is fun! Make it appealing. Six basic elements constitute the culture and context of personalized instruction. The cultural components—teacher role, student learning characteristics, and collegial relationships—establish the foundation of personalization and ensure that the school prizes a caring and collaborative environment. The contextual factors—interactivity, flexible scheduling, and authentic assessment—establish the structure of personalization. Furthermore, learning style in this study varied by demography, specifically by age, suggesting a change in learning style as one gets older and acquires more experience. While significant age differences did occur, as well as no experimental manipulation of classroom assignment, the findings do call into question the aim of congruent teaching–learning styles in the classroom.

In teacher professional development

Research about using learning styles as a tool in professional teacher development has shown some positive findings. For example, in the study "Developing Teacher Sensitivity to Individual Learning Differences", teachers changed their language, beliefs and practice, thereby increasing their teacher effectiveness when they learned about themselves as learners with learning styles tools.

Criticism

Learning style theories have been criticized by many scholars and researchers. Some psychologists and neuroscientists have questioned the scientific basis for separating out students based on learning style. According to Susan Greenfield the practice is "nonsense" from a neuroscientific point of view: "Humans have evolved to build a picture of the world through our senses working in unison, exploiting the immense interconnectivity that exists in the brain." Similarly, Christine Harrington argued that since all students are multisensory learners, educators should teach research-based general learning skills.

Since 2012, learning styles have often been referred to as a "neuromyth" in education, which is believed by up to 89% of educators. There is evidence of empirical and pedagogical problems related to forcing learning tasks to "correspond to differences in a one-to-one fashion". Studies contradict the widespread "meshing hypothesis" that a student will learn best if taught in a method deemed appropriate for the student's learning style. In one study, students were asked to take an inventory of their learning styles. After nearly 400 students completed the inventory, 70% did not use study habits that matched their preferred learning method. This study also indicated that students who used study methods that matched their preferred learning style performed no better on tests than students who did not. According to professor of education Steven Stahl, there has been an "utter failure to find that assessing children's learning styles and matching to instructional methods has any effect on their learning." Professor of education Guy Claxton has questioned the extent that learning styles such as VARK are helpful, particularly as they can have a tendency to label children and therefore restrict learning. Similarly, psychologist Kris Vasquez pointed out a number of problems with learning styles, including the lack of empirical evidence that learning styles are useful in producing student achievement, but also her more serious concern that the use of learning styles in the classroom could lead students to develop self-limiting implicit theories about themselves that could become self-fulfilling prophecies that are harmful, rather than beneficial, to the goal of serving student diversity. Vasquez suggested that teachers may benefit students by mixing multiple presentation techniques (i.e. multiple teaching strategies) in general instead of trying to tailor instruction to individual preferences.

Psychologists Scott Lilienfeld, Barry Beyerstein, and colleagues listed as one of the "50 great myths of popular psychology" the idea that "students learn best when teaching styles are matched to their learning styles", and they summarized some relevant reasons not to believe this "myth".

Cautioning against interpreting neuropsychological research as supporting the applicability of learning style theory, John Geake, Professor of Education at the UK's Oxford Brookes University, and a research collaborator with Oxford University's Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, commented in 2005: "We need to take extreme care when moving from the lab to the classroom. We do remember things visually and aurally, but information isn't defined by how it was received."

The work of Daniel T. Willingham, a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist, has argued that there is not enough evidence to support a theory describing the differences in learning styles amongst students. In his 2009 book Why Don't Students Like School, he claimed that a cognitive styles theory must have three features: "it should consistently attribute to a person the same style, it should show that people with different abilities think and learn differently, and it should show that people with different styles do not, on average, differ in ability".

2009 APS critique

In late 2009, the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) published a report on the scientific validity of learning styles practices. as well as more recent research since the 2009 review.

Furthermore, the panel noted that, even if the requisite finding were obtained, the benefits would need to be large, and not just statistically significant, before learning style interventions could be recommended as cost-effective. That is, the cost of evaluating and classifying students by their learning style, and then providing customized instruction would need to be more beneficial than other interventions (e.g., one-on-one tutoring, after school remediation programs, etc.). This charge was also discussed by Science, which reported that Pashler said, "Just so... most of [the evidence] is 'weak'." The Chronicle reported that even David A. Kolb partly agreed with Pashler; Kolb said: "The paper correctly mentions the practical and ethical problems of sorting people into groups and labeling them. Tracking in education has a bad history."

The model doesn't adequately address the process of reflection;
The claims it makes about the four learning styles are extravagant;
It doesn't sufficiently address the fact of different cultural conditions and experiences;
The idea of stages/steps doesn't necessarily match reality;
It has only weak empirical evidence;
The relationship between learning processes and knowledge is more complex than Kolb draws it.

A 2015 review paper examined the studies of learning styles completed after the 2009 APS critique,

A 2017 research paper from the UK found that 90% of academics agreed there are "basic conceptual flaws" with learning styles theory, yet 58% agreed that students "learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style", and 33% reported that they used learning styles as a method in the past year.

A 2025 meta-analysis explored the distinction between learning styles and learning strategies, concluding that we should not perpetuate the myths and unsupported claims about learning styles. Instead, educators should focus more on learning strategies that "can foster a more robust and flexible learning environment by emphasizing critical thinking, self-regulation, and meaningful engagement with content".

References

External links

The Biggest Myth In Education by Veritasium