Week 7: The Myth of Learning Styles and the Process of Education

Olga Khazan details the history of “learning styles” and boldly claims them to be myths for The Atlantic in 2018. The history of learning styles starts in New Zealand with Neil Fleming who observed 9000 classrooms and zeroed in on how students like to be presented information. Fleming then developed the VARK (Visual, Auditory, Reading, and Kinesthetic) questionnaire to determine someone’s learning style. While Fleming wasn’t the first to come up with this theory, VARK is widely popular.

Khazan attributes the popularity of the VARK questionnaire to the “self-esteem movement”/everyone is special/Mr. Rogers era. Anyone who’s been in school at this point has completed some form of this questionnaire and have referenced their learning style with some sense of pride. Whether that’s pride in understanding how you like to be presented or that an educator is using your preferred learning style and as a result you felt like you are learning.

Khazan attempts to debunk the “myth of learning styles” by citing several studies. The studies are respectable enough, but I don’t believe that they helped her argument. The studies showed that students weren’t particularly studying materials in their learning style. Another study showed there was no correlation between learning material in a preferred learning style and retention. Khazan concluded that even Fleming voiced his concerns over educators focused on learning styles too much when they’re just a preferred communication style. He asserted that it’s really about the quality of communication.

What do we make of this? I think this can be said about anything. I believe knowing your learning style is a way to understanding how you best take in information and believe the quality of any communication would be important in retention. How can educators still honor various learning styles while not relying on them completely and providing quality instruction?

In Jerome S. Bruner’s The Process of Education, there is a central hypothesis that a subject can be taught effectively in a intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development. In that there are three general ideas, the process of intellectual development (refers to the ability to learn in relation to the world around you) in children, the act of learning (acquisition, transformation, and evaluation of knowledge) and the notion of the spiral curriculum (increasing complexity as the curriculum).

I believe all of these processes reinforce the importance of scaffolding and evaluation throughout the learning process. It makes educators consider two things: how can I continue to build on concepts as I move through the year or as a child matriculates and how/when can create checkpoints for evaluation? I think these thoughts are foundational and in my own education experience, the best teachers did this. Educators, do you agree? Is this foundational? Does this support scaffolding or the need for evaluation?

Now I’m thinking as a graduate student not in the education field, how can I apply these concepts in any situation where a curriculum needs to be designed such as a lunch and learn or a presentation or even a speech (which is essentially a lecture). It gives me something to think about as I carry on with this work.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 27, 2019 at 5:47 PM

    "I believe knowing your learning style is a way to understanding how you best take in information and believe the quality of any communication would be important in retention. " I agree with this wholly. To play devil's advocate, I understand what the author was coming from. I believe that learners will leanr in a classroom or in life regardless of how the information is attained. But while reading this, I did not think she dispelled the VARK learning theory in my opinion. Although learners can attain new information that is given to them in a different method of learning, I think knowing which learning method that best fits your (the learner's) learning preference is an efficient way in engaging in active learning. Of course, it would be impossible for one teacher to adjust their teaching style to fit the learning preferences of every student in the classroom - so either way, students will be trained to engage in learning methods that differ from their own learning style. To be fair, I opinion could be rooted in the fact that I have be taught the different methods of learning very early on in my education and I have used this theory to adjust the way I studied for test, or take notes. So my opinion could be one based in bias. Thank you for sharing!

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  2. SteveFebruary 28, 2019 at 5:01 AM

    Thank you for the blog! I agree that the quality of the communication is more important than trying to align your teaching with a particular VARK method of presentation. In my own school, I have classes of 30-35 students. With classes that large, I've found it best to try to mix up the ways that I present concepts, so that things stay fresh. Sometimes I use a Powerpoint with pictures to present the vocabulary. Sometimes we read a guided passage out of the textbook instead. Sometimes we do motions to practice the verbs, and we always practice saying them out loud and using them in context. I think trying to use the best way to present the information that needs presenting is the way to go, rather than trying to cater to a specific "learning style." Thanks again for the post!

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  3. Yesenia BuenoFebruary 28, 2019 at 3:48 PM

    ​Hello and thank you for sharing your post and your opinion. I value your rebuttal of the Kazhan reading and think it is so important for us as learners to challenge information that is presented to us. ​I agree that we as learners know best how we learn and absorb information, but can't help but also play the devil's advocate and question if this is what Khazan is warning us of. I can't help but think in terms of "impairments" or "disabilities" in thinking about Kazhan's argument about straying away from labeling and "learning styles." When people lose sight, their auditory skills become heightened...does this mean that when we box ourselves in as "visual" "auditory" learners etc, we are suppressing other functions we can use as tools for our learning and development?

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  4. AnonymousFebruary 28, 2019 at 5:37 PM

    Thank you for sharing! When you stated "I believe knowing your learning style is a way to understanding how you best take in information and believe the quality of any communication would be important in retention," I totally agree with you. I almost agree with Kazhan's argument that we should stray away form labeling and experiment with multiple learning styles. If I only provide my students with visual presentations and teaching styles, then they are going loose their sense of learning with audio and visual aides. My last professor was telling us about Myths of the buzzword " flexible seating" and how sitting preference actually does not increase your learning. What it does do it increase motivation which in return can help students learn. This is also an interesting approach on " learning styles" and whether the reason they work is because they increase other aspects that influence our learning.

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