Learning Styles: A Teacher Misunderstands A Paper, and A Psychological Scientist Explains.

I've written now and again about the popular-in-education notion of "learning styles", which has two parts:

1. that individuals have a preferred modality for taking in new information (auditory, visual and kinaesthetic -- listening, by reading and through pictures, or by moving, touching and doing). 
2. That students' performance will be improved if the teacher matches the delivery of instruction to the students' preferred modality.

Both halves of the notion have  been questionable for years, despite extreme popularity with teachers at all levels of education.

In December 2009 the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest published an article reviewing evidence for the second half of the learning styles notion.  Pashler et al. found no evidence that matching teaching modality to an individual's learning style increased the learner's educational performance, and recommended that in general the nature of the content to be learned should determine how the material is presented.

On Feb. 17, 2010, Teacher Journal published Heather Wolpert-Gawron's article, The Bunk of Debunking Learning Styles. (Teach Effectively! showed me the way to this and the rebuttal at Cedar's Digest.)

I read her article, and thought she had really misunderstood the Pashler article on several levels: The first was how she illustrated "learning styles":

• Neil learns better if I’m teaching with the interactive board and totally phases out when we’re reading. I’d really want to know about Neil’s reading level — this may have to do with his difficulty with reading, rather than a “learning style”

• Desiree phases out when we’re reading, but as long as someone’s talking about the material, she’s in. Ditto for Desiree

• Tien thrives in the computer lab.Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? What does this mean about Tien’s alleged learning style?

• The entire class wakes up if they stand up.Well, d’oh! It’s well-known that frequent breaks from just sitting and listening increase engagement. It doesn’t have a danged thing to do with the learning styles stuff

• Seth has to be doing three things at once or he can’t pay attention at all. Again — what does this have to do with the claims for learning styles?

• Armando needs everything to relate to him or he goes over to the Dark Side. That would be middle school, wouldn’t it?

• Jenny will do anything academic I ask of her as long as I allow her to use a pink pen. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? What does this mean about Jenny’s alleged learning style?

• Brandon will never be given the time of day, and nobody will love his writing like I do, unless he learns to type.Sounds more like Brandon hasn’t learned, or is otherwise unable, to handwrite accurately and legibly. Don’t get me started on handwriting, either in elementary school or in middle school

• Every student loves coming in to find the room looking different. And this is relevant to learning styles…how?

• Sarah will only work with Angy, but Fabiola can’t work with Sarah. Welcome to middle school, part deux

• Tin will function in a small group, but only one consisting of young ladies. Welcome to middle school, part trois

The second is a comment she wrote later, in the response section:

I want to continue to reiterate that true, accurate research can be found in many sources. It is dangerous to take scientific research to heart as 100% accurate because there are always studies that maintain with as much vehemence and research the flip side to any study. .... And it is reckless of a study to be published with no flip side acknowledged.

What? There are always studies maintaining the opposite position?  Unfortunately,  Wolpert-Gawron doesn't provide citations or examples to back up this astonishing claim, even limited to the field of education and educational methodologies.  Essentially, what she's saying is that anybody can and should ignore even impressive research in the field of education, because sooner or later someone will prove the opposite.

And what? Did Wolpert-Gawron not read the article?  Here's the passage from Points of Clarification, to which I've added emphasis:

Although we have argued that the extant data do not provide support for the learning-styles hypothesis, it should be emphasized that we do not claim that the same kind of instruction is most useful in all contexts and with all learners. An obvious point is that the optimal instructional method is likely to vary across disciplines. For instance, the optimal curriculum for a writing course probably includes a heavy verbal emphasis, whereas the most efficient and effective method of teaching geometry obviously requires visual–spatial materials. Of course, identifying the optimal approach for each discipline is an empirical question, and we espouse research using strong research methods to identify the optimal approach for each kind of sub- ject matter.

Furthermore, it is undoubtedly the case that a particular student will sometimes benefit from having a particular kind of course content presented in one way versus another. One suspects that educators’ attraction to the idea of learning styles partly reflects their (correctly) noticing how often one student may achieve enlightenment from an approach that seems useless for another student. There is, however, a great gap from such heterogeneous responses to instructional manipulations— --whose reality we do not dispute—- to the notion that presently available taxonomies of student types offer any valid help in deciding what kind of instruction to offer each individual. Perhaps future research may demonstrate such linkages, but at present, we find no evidence for it.

Fortunately, the person who blogs at Cedars Digest, who identified himself as a cognitive scientist and a person with many teachers in his immediate family, came to the rescue with an informative post, accessible to lay readers: Learning Styles: What's Being Debunked.

First, it is necessary to clarify the definition of learning styles and the predictions of learning styles theory. Second, I want to pinpoint what the “debunkers” in question are claiming, which I think is more specific than Ms. Gawron-Wolpert describes. Finally, since she seems to believe that basic science is useless when it comes to the practice of teaching, I want to describe how basic cognitive science can apply to teaching. Although the scientific search for evidence of learning styles has yielded no evidence of their existence, basic psychological science can help teachers, even as it steers clear of dictating exactly what works in any individual classroom.

I recommend Cedar's post highly.

Previously here:

Matching Teaching Style to Content

The idea that people may differ in their ability to learn new material depending on its modality—that is, whether the child hears it, sees it, or touches it—has been tested for over 100 years. And the idea that these differences might prove useful in the classroom has been around for at least 40 years.

What cognitive science has taught us is that children do differ in their abilities with different modalities, but teaching the child in his best modality doesn’t affect his educational achievement. What does matter is whether the child is taught in the content’s best modality. All students learn more when content drives the choice of modality. In this column, I will describe some of the research on matching modality strength to the modality of instruction. I will also address why the idea of tailoring instruction to a student’s best modality is so enduring—despite substantial evidence that it is wrong.

Also Previously:
Learning Styles: Useful or A Crock?
Learning Styles: Construct or Bologna?
Dale's Cone not a Cone But A Crock
If Mainstream Educators Were In Charge of Athletic Training

Elsewhere

AFT's American Educator: Ask The Cognitive Scientist: (Summer 2005):

• Do Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Learners Need Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Instruction?
• How Has Modality Theory Been Tested?
• The Content's Best Modality Is Key

Teach Effectively: Learning Styles Redux
Teach Effectively: Evidence-Based Practice
Teach Effectively: Learning Styles Challenge

LDBlog: Learning Styles

Instructivist: Learning Styles

Cited works:

Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence
Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork
Download the Pashler et al. article You can Download the editorial

Comments

[KWombles]

Nicely done, Liz. My dad and I were arguing over research relating to learning styles just last week, with me pointing out that they'd pretty much been debunked as far as any efficacy relating to matching teaching style to student learning style. :-)

[TS]

I don't know. I think matching the styles could be of help to some students, especially those who do not adapt swiftly to each teachers way of presenting information. I think it's hard to accurately state whether it is or isn't given each individual is different and no study is able to study every human on earth. At best they can only draw a conclusion on a limited population and hope it stands up when the next person comes along to do the same study.

[Arby]

I remember a principal who preached 7 types of brain compatible learning. I never did satisfy her requirement to properly teach gerunds to bodily-kinesthetic learners...