The concept of different "learning styles" is one of the greatest neuroscience myths

[Recursion]

http://qz.com/585143/the-concept-of-different-learning-styles-is-one-of-the-greatest-neuroscience-myths/

Are you a visual learner who writes notes in a rainbow of different colors, or do you have to read something aloud before it will sink it? Chances are, you’ve been asked a similar question at some point in your life, and believe the concept of different “learning styles” is perfectly valid. But, as Quartz reported in December, we all learn in fundamentally similar ways. And, as New York magazine reports, the idea that students learn differently depending on their personal preference for visual, auditory or kinesthetic cues is just a myth.

In fact, it’s considered a “neuromyth,” which, as Paul Howard-Jones, professor of neuroscience and education at Bristol University, writes in a 2014 paper on the subject, is characterized by a misunderstanding, misreading, or misquoting of scientifically established facts.

...

The aforementioned evidence against learning styles is compelling. In 2004, Frank Coffield, professor of education at the University of London, led research into the 13 most popular models of learning styles and found there wasn’t sufficient evidence to cater teaching techniques to various learning styles. And a 2008 study by Harold Pashler, psychology professor at UC San Diego, was scathing. Despite the preponderance of the learning styles concept “from kindergarten to graduate school,” and a “thriving industry” devoted to such guidebooks for teachers, Pashler found there wasn’t rigorous evidence for the concept. He wrote:

Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis. We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general educational practice.

[uppityperson]

1. From my experience, people have differences in learning and performing.

[truedelphi]

26. But in a society where big industry wants kids to learn only from computer screens,

We cannot allow for those different learning protocols. Gotta make everyone "equal!"

[Hortensis]

35. This probably is valid and not a Big-Business conspiracy. :)

This is from a Wired Magazine article:

Yet surprisingly few studies of this format have produced supporting evidence for learning styles; far more evidence (such as this study) runs counter to the myth.

What often happens is that both groups perform better when taught by one particular style. This makes sense because although each of us is unique, usually the most effective way for us to learn is based not on our individual preferences but on the nature of the material we’re being taught – just try learning French grammar pictorially, or learning geometry purely verbally. ...

Oh yes! Another major problem is that there are so many different possible ways to describe people’s preferred learning styles. Indeed, a review published in 2004 identified over 71 different styles mooted in the literature. [The learning styles fad run amok.] ...

... evidence shows that learning style questionnaires are unreliable and people’s self-reported preferences are poorly correlated with their actual performance. In other words, a person might think they learn better, say, visually rather than verbally, but their performance says otherwise!

So, should we completely give up on tailoring our teaching styles? No. While people are often poor at judging which teaching methods are most effective for them, and while there is little strong evidence for the benefits of matching teaching style to preferred learning style, this does not mean there is no scope for tailoring teaching style to improve learning. For example, as Kirschner and Merrienboer point out, there is evidence that novices learn better from studying examples, whereas those with more expertise learn better by solving problems themselves.

Here's the article: http://www.wired.com/2015/01/need-know-learning-styles-myth-two-minutes/

It seems likely that a small percentage of adults will turn out to have a degree of disability with one learning style and do really do better with another, but that the learning styles theories will turn out to be just a myth for most. Even those who dislike reading and will hate having this excuse to avoid it taken away.

[truedelphi]

39. Please see my reply number 38. n/t

[Hortensis]

46. If conspiracies they must be, Big Evil Business

is ALSO heavily involved in the learning styles market. After all, it's been offering great opportunities for milking too.

For conspiracies worth worrying about, why not focus on the trend to fascism here and in many other countries around the planet? THAT's a problem worthy of the utmost outrage and deepest concern. Check out the connection between avowed libertarianism and fascism. Despite presumed very large ideological differences, they both increasingly channel the wealth of nations through corporate structures.

[truedelphi]

47. If you knew me even a little, you would realize I have been all about the Fascism -

Googling google with the following three expressions (truedelphi and DU and fascism) gave me ten pages of my replies on this board going back to 2012 (and maybe before?) Please see some of the replies I have made, below the ## tags.

Anyway we were not talking about fascism. (But nice attempt at deflection!)

What we were talking about was my years of investigating "studies" and research. We were talking about the fact that as someone who has looked into how "studies" from supposedly reputable scientists and researchers are not at all reliable, especially if some big industry is paying for those studies.i

I encapsulated my investigation into this article posted in my diaries over at Daily Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2008/6/22/540267/-

Although this investigation had to do with MTBE, the situation involving big industry and their studies is applicable to many other topics and elements of research. Everything from how the "new smart cars" are going to be safe, to how products like Roundup and fabric softeners are safe.


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The exact plan that the fascists rolled out in 1994 (Reply #22 ...
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Nov 15, 2014 - Democratic Underground ... Response to truedelphi (Original post). Sat Nov 15, 2014, ... 22. The exact plan that the fascists rolled out in 1994 ...
Corporate fascism, and we are their enemy. nt (Reply #8 ...
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Jul 9, 2013 - msongs, Jul 2013, #7. Line Reply Yes and that lackey designation includes far too many people with the. truedelphi, Jul 2013, #29. Line Reply ...
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[Hortensis]

56. Sorry I didnt know of your awareness of the threat

of fascism. I believe it's important to protect credibility by not labeling everything a conspiracy, though, even if an argument for one could be made. Sure, phony studies are commissioned, but so are valid ones. Did you know that people who don't like to read lose an average of 5 years of reading level after leaving school? Of course adults reading at a middle or high school level might prefer videos and choose not to read a six-page The Atlantic article on even a subject of great interest. Good reading comprehension requires years and years of practice to develop and trying to read dense text after years of avoiding it isn't exactly like learning to ride a bike again.

[Odin2005]

52. Are you accusing psychologists of being part of a conspiracy?

Do you think global warming is a conspiracy invented by climatologists, too?

[Odin2005]

51. The pural of anecdote is not data.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. I know how I learn best.

Last edited Tue Jan 5, 2016, 05:53 AM - Edit history (1)

I am very auditory. I know a couple of people who are more auditory than I am, and they are blind, and are a lot of fun to talk to.

I've been a musician since early elementary school.

I also knew in college that I had to go to class, listen and take notes, but I didn't know why. Just reading the textbook didn't work. I couldn't skip class and make up learning the material just by reading.

Turns out that I have to hear the teacher and take notes (kinesthetic). That's learning through hearing and movement. I did not know this at the time, but it makes sense.

[AngryAmish]

6. If you read the article, you would realize that it is a just so story.

[Bonx]

23. In my experience, Once a person convinces themselves they learn a certain way

they don't want to hear anything about how that might not be true.

[truedelphi]

28. My mother was very auditory-oriented also.

She could not figure things out if the instructions were on a sheet of paper.

She went to school in a town with less than 1,000 people, so she ended up thinking for most of her life that she was stupid.

When I was in college, over spring break, a lot of my friends descended on our home, and they taught her this complicated card game, "Sheepshead." She picked it up before you could even say "And Bob's your uncle." That was the first time I realized she was not at all dumb, but a victim of a bad educational experience.

I am the exact opposite - I much prefer things be on paper and can be read. Have great difficulty following oral instructions.

[NV Whino]

3. And that would explain...

Why PhotoShop, and programs like it, have several different ways to achieve the same goal?

That is one thing I've always admired about PhotoShop. I hate working with curves, and don't really understand them. But give me a visual reference (lighter/darker, more magenta, yellow or cyan) and I'm a happy camper. Other people love to tweak those curves, and get great results.

These programs are set up that way because people do learn in different manners. A good teacher will create diverse teaching methods to reach all students. Should there be a formal and required approach to incorporating those styles? Probably not, but teachers should be aware of them and be able too use them as needed.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

21. Montessori schools use the 3 modalities of learning.

The example I know about is that the kids trace large letters made out of sandpaper with their fingers to get the shapes imprinted in their minds through touch. I am sure there are a lot more examples. I am not that familiar with Montessori methods.

[Dorian Gray]

29. My daughter is in school

A Montessori school. I love it. (She's still in pre-k.) But yes, they touch. They learn conceptually. And through all sorts of modalities.

Their math is tactile, too. I think it's a great way for younger kids to learn. It isn't just numbers. You can see it and feel it. How ones differ from tens and how tens differ from hundreds.

[Squinch]

54. I think that may be based on something slightly different (for which there ARE studies.)

Very young children, like 3,4,5 years old, do not have the fine motor or visual acuity yet to do close work well, and they DO learn better with larger movement and larger materials. So tracing the larger letters is just a logical technique to work with their stage of brain development.

Today's curricula in the US completely ignores what we know about brain development. This might be where the "learning style" myth comes from: If teachers find that some 4 year olds who had a hard time learning letters by writing them on paper ARE able to learn them using techniques like the one described, the teacher might conclude that the child is a "tactile learner." They are really just a typical learner who cannot fit the square peg of his normally developing brain into the round hole of today's school curricula.

[mathematic]

4. Apparently our non-learning styles are similar too

Some mix of not reading the article and denial.

[postulater]

5. Could you please colorize those words so I can hear them better?

[Codeine]

7. And as with any myth the believers are sufficiently invested in it

that they will simply ignore that which contradicts their belief.

[Blue_Tires]

12. Or the dude could actually be wrong,

or the truth could lie somewhere in the middle...

[pnwmom]

8. Or it could be that these named researchers are just outliers, and there

are plenty of other researchers who support the idea.

I tend to think they're wrong, simply because people have individual strengths and weaknesses. It is patently obvious to anyone who has been a teacher that different people have different ways of learning and different strengths.

I know that it is much easier for me to focus on written information, than to process a lecture. Other people feel the opposite -- because we have different learning styles.

[KingCharlemagne]

34. I can definitely second your observations based on my experiences

teaching ESL. Many students profit from the physicality of writing new vocabulary by hand, or by seeing pictures of the words, rather than simply listening to me drone on.

[hobbit709]

9. Depending on what I am trying to learn, the preponderance of each style varies.

some things I pick up faster by doing them, others by reading or watching, some by listening.

[Wounded Bear]

10. I'd like to be able to follow the money on this one...

It sounds a lot like a typical corporate answer:

After Coffield published his study in 2004, he told The Guardian, “Low-cost and easily implemented classroom approaches can certainly cultivate wishfulness amongst educators, especially if they are fun and therefore likely to be well received by students.”

Actually teaching kids in a way that they can best learn would fly in the face of a 'one size fits all' cost saving method desired by profit driven education facilities.

[smirkymonkey]

16. I think you're on to something here.

I call bullshit on this study.

[laundry_queen]

25. Yes, that part jumped out at me

Lots of conflation in the study of numerous 'learning styles' that I was taught in school are actually 'personality types' that aren't directly tied to learning necessarily. Some were designed more for workplace assignments than grade school learning. But whatever. I found the studies sited poorly worded, confusing and the one seemed ridiculously disjointed (and lacked a coherent synopsis to bring it all together).

I will state for the record that I always test as a 'sight' learner but it drives me absolutely batty that they lump the whole color coding thing in with the sight thing - I'm a reading learner. Someone else can read a page to me, I forget it in 5 minutes. Let me read it I remember it forever (partial photographic memory). Color code it or highlight words and I'll get all confused, and come test time all I'll see in my head is the colors, not the words, LOL. Not helpful. (I know, I tried it when I was in school a few years back at the urging of my prof when I tested almost 100% 'sight' in learning styles - words and color - NOT THE SAME)

[Nay]

30. What's hilarious is that there is a tug of war between TWO

profit-driven educational entities -- the for-profit schools that want to do the 'one size fits all' education model to save money, and the private companies who make millions by producing materials for each of the different types of learners/teacher materials for each mode of learning, etc. Neither of the groups gives a rat's ass about the truth.

[Wounded Bear]

32. Yeah, the 'free market' at its best...

screwing up something that should have nothing to do with financial profits.

[Nay]

33. Yup. The free market has not turned out to be a place where "the best

idea wins" but a place where "the ten loudest lies win."

[truedelphi]

37. That is a very good point. n/t

[yellowcanine]

36. Yep, the McGuffey Reader/Rote Learning/Teach to the test folks stand to benefit if this meme stands.

Call me skeptical. These are the same folks who say art/music/theater are "fluff" and shouldn't be funded.

[truedelphi]

38. Of course, their reply to the likes of you and me would be that

the majority of tests and studies done on the topic indicate that it is no longer important to cater to different learning styles, as the whole notion of "different learning styles is a myth."

As someone who had to spend some three years of my life attending meetings and hoping against hope that industry's many (above one thousand!) tests regarding MTBE, the toxic gas additive) would be ignored, as they were badly done and pandered to the industry that supported them, while the two indie tests were finally received as the TRUTH, I now hope to live to see that the perpetrators of the idea that learning styles are "a myth" folks are undone as well.

It is not how many studies that are done that prove a point - it is WHO FUNDS THE STUDIES, and whether the studies' conclusions are forced into being through consideration of who holds the bigger pocketbook. Which is to science just about the same as The Holy Roman Catholic Church letting a researcher know they were free to research whatever they wanted to and conclude whatever they wanted to, as long as they didn't disagree with the Holy Roman Church.

What is happening right now is that Big Industry has replaced the Church in terms of dictating "scientific truths."

[truedelphi]

48. I mean, whatever would we do if the students in this country actually were to learn things?

In the years before the arts, music, drama etc programs were all cut, kids wired their brains in ways that allowed for critical thinking.

Most people are not aware that due to how poorly kids are taught, plus all the psych meds like ritalin, plus all the exposure to pesticides and other neuro toxins such as are contained in Glade, and Febreeze, admissions people from Stanford in the West to Princeton and Yale and Harvard in the East have lowered their admissions standards by getting the various testing agencies to have less challenging tests.

[Odin2005]

49. Learning styles is widely regarded as a myth by psychologists.

This is not a conspiracy.

[aikoaiko]

11. Most of the research supporting learning styles conflated preferences for learning methods

With the concept of actual learning styles.

Cognitive psychology has been trying to correct educational research on this issue for over 15 years

[Recursion]

13. Great point (nt)

[laundry_queen]

27. Yes

that's what I was trying to say...should have read further downthread. Not personality types...and weren't some of them created more for HR departments to assign new employees to more 'appropriate' positions? I'm pretty certain we did a whole chapter of this in my organizational behavior class or maybe my social psych class...damn it's been a long time, lol. Nevermind me...carry on...

[el_bryanto]

14. I think the article title overreaches

In that it suggests that idea of different learning styles has been proven wrong; when the text suggests more that it simply hasn't been tested right as much as most people believe.

Bryant

[KittyWampus]

15. And yet it's a fact that different people learn best using different strategies.

All I get from the article is that present-day science says it does not make sense for schools to categorize students into learning-type groups and have material presented to each group using separate strategies.

However, it makes sense for individuals to be aware there are different cues and methods, to explore them and find which works best for them.

We are not machines. Yes, scientists can observe which parts of our brain activate and how they activate while learning. What they cannot do is by this observation is discount individual preferences.

And when it comes to autistic individuals, the need is greater to explore different strategies.

[Wounded Bear]

17. Agreed...

and while I often decry the use of 'anecdotal evidence' in discussions, the testimony of teachers from all over the world is kind of hard to refute. They are the experts after all. They are the ones trying to feed the learning to the children and best experienced in determining, on an individual basis, the best way to do so.

I think if there was a 'one size fits all' method of teaching that was universally successful, I think the teachers of this country would have ferreted it out by now.

[Yavin4]

18. My rebuttal: David Boise

Mr. Boise is a partner of the law firm, Boies, Schiller& Flexner. You may have heard of him. He represented Al Gore before the Supreme Court in the 2000 voter re-count case, and he represented the GBLT community seeking to overturn the state of California's Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage.

What you probably don't know about him is that he's dyslexic. It takes him a year to read one book. He learns by listening intently.


http://dyslexia.yale.edu/boies.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Boies

[Recursion]

20. Did he benefit directly from the "mesh" framework that the "learning styles" idea is based on?

It doesn't sound like it, from what you posted.

[RobinA]

44. He Also

has things extensively color coded and organized in his particular way. Maybe they don't want to call this a "learning style," but it's clearly different than many other people would do things.

[kwassa]

19. This article way over-reaches.

nothing in it disproves learning styles exist, which would be necessary to calling it a myth.

There is very little rigorous evidence for anything in education.

[bhikkhu]

22. It took me years to really figure out how I learn best, lacking any theory of learning styles

...as the idea of different learning styles itself was not a part of my education growing up. When I set to return to college at 39 I decided to be more deliberate and systematic, as I didn't really have time or money to waste. Thinking back over how my school experiences varied (sometimes going very badly), I realized that I was not fundamentally any good at retaining "heard" information, while I was very good at retaining written information. If you tell me something, I won't be able to analyze or integrate it, or even remember it well. If you give it to me in writing, its easy for me.

So, in classes that required listening to the teacher, rather than really listening I wrote down what was being said so that I could read it later. I also made it a habit to read the textbooks fully before the term even started, to form the mental structure for the scope and details of what I needed to know. It all worked very well.

And, if something works in practice, that is evidence. I think it is more for science to discover why things are the way they are than to simply say they aren't because quantifiable evidence is hard to gather.

[nolabear]

24. I disagree with the article.

Strongly. I've seen enough evidence to believe we learn in many ways, and studied enough studies that supported it. And I'm quite different from some I know and like others in how I learn best.

Frankly, this does nothing to convince me.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

31. Arthur Rubinstein had a photographic memory.

I remember my piano teacher telling me, when I was little, that Arthur Rubinstein had a photographic memory. That he could visualize a piece of sheet music in his head and just read the notes. Arthur Rubinstein was one of the great pianists of the 20th century. I saw him play a full recital when I was in high school. He was EIGHTY-THREE YEARS OLD.

I learn piano music visually from reading the sheet music. However, as I learn it, it becomes finger memory (kinesthetic) and auditory (when I hear a wrong note, I know in my fingers and also in my ears I heard a wrong note, once I have completely learned a piece). I can recognize a piece of sheet music visually. I can often tell which time period it is from without knowing the composer just by looking at it --- Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern periods.

Excerpt from an article about Arthur Rubinstein.
link:
http://www.notesontheroad.com/Ying-s-Links/Today-s-Birthday-in-Music-Arthur-Rubinstein.html

QUOTE
Arthur Rubinstein (January 28, 1887 – December 20, 1982) was a Polish-American classical pianist who is widely regarded as one of the great musicians of the twentieth century. Rubinstein is known especially for his masterful interpretation of Frédéric Chopin. His concert career spanned eight decades. Rubinstein's musical prowess as well as his ability to speak eight languages, were largely attributed to his self-described photographic memory. Once, Rubinstein learned the whole of César Franck's Symphonic Variations during his train ride to the concert. Without a piano, he learned the passages by playing them on his lap. END QUOTE

So this means he learned the music visually, then reinforced it kinesthetically by playing the piano notes in his lap.

[truedelphi]

40. Thanks for relating that story.

Fascinating.

[Mosby]

41. What are Learning Styles?

You have probably heard of them - you fill in a questionnaire to be told that you a 'visual learner' or an 'auditory learner', a 'reflector' or a 'pragmatist', a 'diverger' or a 'converger'? But exactly what are Learning Styles? They are, unfortunately, one of the great myths in learning theory.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mouse-man/201504/what-are-learning-styles

[Mosby]

42. Learning Styles - a hugely popular idea that simply isn't supported by psychological science

ON A SUNNY hike along a Madeiran levada a couple of years ago, I got chatting to a retired school teacher and I told him about the brain myths book I was writing. An affable chap, he listened with interest about the 10 percent myth and other classic misconceptions, but his mood changed when I mentioned learning styles. This is the mistaken idea that we learn better when the instruction we receive is tailored to our preferred way of learning. The friendly teacher was passionate about the concept’s merit – his own preferred style, he said, was to learn “by doing” and no-one would ever convince him otherwise.

How widely believed is the myth?
The teacher I met in Madeira is far from alone in endorsing the myth. It is propagated not only in hundreds of popular books, but also through international conferences and associations, by commercial companies who sell ways of measuring learning styles, and in teacher training programs. The TeachingEnglish website published by the British Council and the BBC states boldly “Your students will be more successful if you match your teaching style to their learning styles” – this includes, they claim, being: right- or left-brained, analytic vs. dynamic, and visual vs. auditory. A recent international survey of teachers from the UK, China and researchers found that 96 percent believed in the idea of preferred learning styles.

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/need-know-learning-styles-myth-two-minutes/

[Mosby]

43. L&D Neuromyth: Learning Styles (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic)

In the field of neuroscience, there are a number of "neuromyths" — a term that is now being used to describe misconceptions and inaccuracies about brain functioning. These are myths that pervade popular culture, education and business, including many L&D departments.

According to research, there is no more widely believed and yet "thoroughly debunked" neuromyth than learning styles. While learning styles is an umbrella term that can refer to a number of different categorization models, the most well-known is VAK: visual, auditory, kinesthetic (seeing, hearing, doing).

https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/Science-of-Learning-Blog/2015/07/LD-Neuromyth-Learning-Styles

[RobinA]

45. All I See

is "insufficient evidence," not debunked.

[Odin2005]

50. As a person with the psych background the amount of denial in this thread is sad.

The notion of learning styles is widely regarded as BS pseudoscience by most psychologists, this isn't some corporate conspiracy against education. You people are sounding no different than the global warming denialists.

[hifiguy]

55. Hey, Odin, haven't seen you for a while.

Also, that troll was dispatched with extraordinary alacrity.