
Do Students Really Have Different Learning Styles? - akbarnama
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/04/do-students-have-different-learning-styles/
======
oinksoft
In elementary school, it was always the slow learners who the teachers
classified or who self-selected as "kinesthetic learners" when this topic came
up: Hands-on teaching was far more patient than lecturing. Lazy students like
me were called "visual learners" because we didn't care to bury ourselves in
state texts written for 10 year-olds. I sensed that the theory was bunk then,
and it's bunk now. From the cited UVA article:
[http://www.changemag.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/September-
Oc...](http://www.changemag.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/September-
October%202010/the-myth-of-learning-full.html)

    
    
      > Third, learning-styles theory has succeeded in becoming
      > “common knowledge.” Its widespread acceptance serves as
      > an unfortunately compelling reason to believe it. This
      > is accompanied by a well-known cognitive phenomenon
      > called the confirmation bias.
    

That point is made clear by other comments in this thread treating the
existence of these "styles" as a matter of fact.

Differences between students don't prove that learning is constrained to a
single sense. It's a bizarre hypothesis and it only serves educators.

------
tgb
I don't like this article. Here are my main concerns:

1) The review article cited at the start concludes its abstract with this:

"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. Thus, limited education resources would better be devoted to
adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of
which there are an increasing number. However, given the lack of
methodologically sound studies of learning styles, it would be an error to
conclude that all possible versions of learning styles have been tested and
found wanting; many have simply not been tested at all."

I would happily replace the entire linked article with these two half
paragraphs! Note that this means we don't know there isn't learning styles; we
just know that those handful of ones so far tested have proven ineffective.

2) That a classroom does better with a math-through-music approach does not
mean that all students do better through that. The cited article for this
study doesn't appear to make that claim or any claim about the existence of
learning styles (but it's paywalled). Clearly a classroom learns better when
instructed in a language that the students understand - does that mean that
learning styles don't exist?

3) That classes learn best when given a mixture of styles of information does
not mean that there are no learning styles. (If you told me that mixing styles
improves a class's learning, that would make me think it more likely that
learning styles exist - otherwise it's more likely that there's some optimal
single method that is better than trying all available methods.)

~~~
grayclhn
Re 3: I think it's likely that there are diminishing returns the longer you
present material the same way, and that switching it up makes students more
interested.

When I read that part, I assumed they were talking about the individual
students performing better, not the class in aggregate. If it's student by
student, that is (weak) evidence against learning styles.

~~~
mtdewcmu
>> Re 3: I think it's likely that there are diminishing returns the longer you
present material the same way, and that switching it up makes students more
interested.

Maybe as important, variety helps keep the instructor from losing interest in
what he/she is teaching. If the instructor sounds interested, that makes the
subject sound interesting, and that undoubtedly is good for learning. See the
Hawthorne Effect.

>> When I read that part, I assumed they were talking about the individual
students performing better, not the class in aggregate. If it's student by
student, that is (weak) evidence against learning styles.

The bigger issue is the the lack of evidence in favor of learning styles.
Without supporting evidence, there's no particular reason to believe they
exist.

------
bane
I taught an advanced adult course for a number of years. I taught something
north of 700 students in 40 and 80 hour courses over that time. I also later
developed curriculum for another instructional program involving around 300
hours of instruction time that taught complex technical skills to another 300
people (equivalent to 2 B.S. degrees in terms of class-time) and graduated
them as instructors in their subject. So I feel comfortable claiming I'm a
professional educator (at least with adults). I also feel comfortable claiming
that there are definitely different learning styles.

In addition, after being identified as a "special gifted student", I myself
went through a nonstop progression of tests and evaluations as a student
starting in elementary school and continuing all through high school so I'm
extremely familiar with the tests and results being talked about here.

I'd say as both a subject of these tests and as a former professional
educator, yes, absolutely, students have different learning styles. But I
agree with the article that the kinds of styles and methods used to identify
the learning modes don't really work.

Even worse, once students learn the results of these diagnostic tools, they
use this knowledge as a kind of crutch to explain areas they are weak in. I'm
sure there's a term for this phenomenon. Students then expect the teacher to
treat them as a special snowflake and teach in the mode that they believe they
learn most naturally in.

I believe that these diagnostic tools are being used incorrectly. They should
be used to identify where students have weak modes of learning, and then their
education should focus on building up those modes, not streamlining the
educational process for efficiency and optimizing only for where students are
_already_ strong.

It's like a person who already has strong biceps doing nothing but curls in
the gym and not only skipping leg day, but telling everybody else in the gym
that they don't do legs because they're biceps are already well developed and
their legs don't work so well.

This is a continuation of the notion that public education is an assembly line
process like building cars and needs to optimize for the fastest way to shove
knowledge into a student's head. This is a hopelessly dead-end approach to
pedagogy.

Education should be about teaching people how to learn themselves. If a
student opens up multiple modes of learning, they can already multiply their
capacity to learn. If you are weak in an area, then you should concentrate in
that area. Learning is both a talent and a skill that needs cultivation.

~~~
aik
Interesting. Are you aware of ways of teaching new modes of learning, or even
have a list of modes? And whether it can be done with reasonable success (ie.
given that people think in different ways, can one person become as competent
in other modes or are they limited by their hardware? Are there studies around
this?)

~~~
bane
I'm a strong believer that students have to "complete a circuit" with new
concepts. That means they have to be able to express as output what they just
took in as input. If they read or hear something, they have to be able to
explain it back in both writing, speaking and demonstration. Knowledge has to
go in and come out of a student so it exercises as much of their brain as
possible and the semantic links are built. I model this a little on language
acquisition, you have to be able to both recognize and produce in your new
language before you can say you've learned it. I think the same is true for
any subject.

In terms of pedagogy, the best I could do was to make sure each lesson in the
curriculum provided as many modes to learning as possible with as many
opportunities for them to produce as possible with a very strong focus on high
interactivity with the instructor and the material:

For visual learners: strong visual presentation with every idea possible
presented as pictures as well as with a written description. Presentation was
both in detailed slides, a take-home textbook as well as supporting dynamic
whiteboard versions of what was on the slides. This covered people who "think
in pictures" who "think in words" and who "think in sequences" (provided by
the whiteboard portion).

For auditory learners: Detailed lecture explaining each part of the
presentation, try to provide stories and catch phrases for each part of the
presentation. For each subject, learn your script so you aren't inventing the
material on the fly and end up confusing the students while you figure out
what to say next. Use key phrase repetition for minor concepts to build up a
kind of mnemonic vocabulary and assemble that vocabulary into major concepts.
Explain each topic in at least two different ways. Get the class to repeat
back difficult terms and phrases. This covers people who use different kinds
of memory aids (mnemonics, catch phrases, stories, etc.) to semantically find
things in their memory, and verbally constructs ideas into language-like
features. The presentation above acts as a primer for the teacher as well and
provides links between the visual and auditory worlds.

For tactile/kinesthetic learners: phase 1) a live demonstration first to show,
phase 2) a hands-on demonstration (students followed along with the teacher
step by step) to teach, phase 3) then a student only exercise for mastery --
followed by a step-by-step review of the student only exercise to fill in gaps
and cement in the ideas. Kinesthetic opportunities are also provided through
instructor interactivity, getting students provide some of the whiteboard
demonstration, exaggerated body movements during class (I even eventually
introduced some silly dances, teachers have to have no shame), hand motion,
physical demonstrations, consistent object positioning in real space and on
visual material. The 3 phase exercise system also provided plentiful hands-on
time. I found that _all_ students are kinesthetic to some extent. Part of
being a mammal I think. I modeled this off of big cats teach their young to
hunt.

The lessons were all carefully ordered to ensure prerequisites were properly
covered, then reused as the foundation for new knowledge. New knowledge was
always presented as single items, then slowly grouped into pairs and triples
of concepts, with interactions and complexity between concepts explained.
Often time examples of a new concept were demonstrated in 2 or 3 forms to help
reinforce the concept as distinct from the specific implementation we were
going to use for the exercises.

Groups of lesson blocks were then collected into mastery exercises to
reinforce what they learned up to that point (which were reviewed step by step
like in phase 3 of the three phase kinesthetic exercise above) and then entire
courses had a capstone exercise (where the students were encouraged to break
the exercise down and assign pieces out to each other, to work together and to
ask questions of each other, even across teams) with full blown presentation
at the end of each capstone. The capstone exercises were purposely open to
interpretation so there was no "right" answer (but there were definitely wrong
answers), but the students were encouraged to ask questions to each other
during the presentation and the instructor was to ask students to justify
specific claims.

Realistically, every single class breaks down into 3 categories of students:

The top of the class, who are eager learners and who know how to pay attention
and apply the lessons immediately. They never get bored, even when the subject
was boring, they always find _something_ to learn or reinforce. There's almost
always at least 1 of these in every class.

The middle of the class, the bulk of the students. They represented the
typical student, interested in learning, but not willing to put lots of effort
into it. Smart enough, but require frequent reinforcement and enormous efforts
on the part of the instructor to ensure interactivity. Usually by the end of
the class _most_ of these students were engaged, paying attention and at least
minimally passing all portions.

The "1". There's always one student who's completely unreachable. No matter
how much time or effort you put into them, they're unable to learn the
material. I've observed that most of these people have some kind of strong
singular personality trait: usually people very self absorbed into their own
personal problems, whatever they might be (family trouble, divorce, work
issues, car having trouble, chronic health problems, etc.). They typically
were bored in class, frequently absent or tardy, and consistently lacked basic
and fundamental skills.

Most often they just wanted a procedure guide to follow or list of steps to
remember -- the worst possible educational outcome, rote memorization. When
those students finished the course and went back to their workplace, very few
of them maintained long-term employment in their job as well -- often
resigning once the first complex task landed on their desk.

This "1" usually emerged by the end of the 1st 8-10 hours of instruction.
After a while you learn as a teacher you really have no choice but to leave
this person behind. If they ask questions or show interest, _always_ help
them, but don't pace the class to that person. Their fundamental problems are
something they brought with them as a burden into the class and you will not
be able to overcome those even if the entire class is turned into an extended
1-1 session with them focused on nothing but teaching that individual student
the material at the expense of every other student.

Classrooms are not navy flotillas, moving at the speed of the slowest ship.
You have to reach the bulk of the students. With these "1" students, there's
simply no magical teaching method or style that's going to suddenly overcome
their years of personal educational neglect and bring them up to speed with
the class and make them excel.

They have more remedial and fundamental issues with learning attitude that
they have to solve. Perhaps they were taught that rote memorization and
procedures are the correct way and they've come to believe that and feel
uncomfortable and insecure in more open-ended environments -- but non-
procedural fields can never be adapted to fit this mental model they've
grabbed onto and they've never exercised the parts of their brain necessary to
figure out things on their own (to learn how to learn, critical thinking and
problem solving). You won't solve these kinds of lifelong issues in your
class. They need a separate and specific educational approach that focuses not
on a specific subject but on how to learn. Not learning is an addiction to
them and until they're actively seeking help to break out of it, no teaching
method will solve it.

------
indieclean
I recently finished Make It Stick by Peter C Brown, who also says the learning
styles myth is bogus.

Highly recommended book that changed the way read (I take notes and put them
on flashcards).

The main point is that effortful retrieval practice is the key to learning
effectively for the long-term and such that what you're learning can readily
be connected to other ideas.

When practicing retrieval (quizzing yourself), he suggests:

1) spacing practice sessions so that it's hard but not impossible to recall 2)
interleaving subjects (frustrating, but memories are much more durable and you
can more readily connect leanrned ideas with others) 3) varying how you
practice (same benefits as above) 4) rephrasing in your own words and
attempting to solve tough problems before knowing the solutions

~~~
akbarnama
Great points!! I just did a coursera course, learning how to learn, in which
the professor emphasized some of these points. I have started using the Anki
software and has helped me.

[https://class.coursera.org/learning-001/lecture](https://class.coursera.org/learning-001/lecture)

------
ColinDabritz
I feel that everyone can learn in all the major ways, although using a variety
of learning styles makes it more engaging and fun.

I view learning styles more like food preferences. Sure, I may like Italian,
but that doesn't mean I should eat Italian for every meal. Variety is also
important. In terms of nutrition requirements, I can get calories from any
food and the rest of the requirements in many different ways.

Also importantly, the nature of the material may make certain kinds of
presentation more useful. Visual for geometry. Auditory for music. Kinesthetic
(physical, touch) for sports. They don't have to be solely in those styles,
but the core material probably should be, with supporting material in other
styles.

The easiest way to cater to learning preferences is variety. Have it in oral
and written form, graphics and text, hands on experiential. Come at it from
all angles. The most surefire bet for learning is to saturate them all, but
it's rarely practical, so try to cover at least a couple.

~~~
m-photonic
Exactly. Proponents of the notion of learning styles have focused on
individual differences, but it's somewhat of a red herring. The vast majority
of people, whatever their strengths may be, benefit from approaching a subject
using MULTIPLE learning styles, not just one.

------
tokenadult
Annie Murphy Paul, the author of the article kindly submitted here, is a very
thoughtful author on psychology and education research. I see she cites the
path-breaking article by Daniel Willingham, which led to his Learning Styles
FAQ,[1] which I encourage all of my friends here on Hacker News to read to
better understand what this issue is about learning styles. People do tend to
take somewhat differing approaches to learning new material, but at least part
of what I have noticed about effective learners is that they learn new ways of
learning, and gain "learning styles" as they grow up and become more versatile
in what they can do.

[1] [http://www.danielwillingham.com/learning-styles-
faq.html](http://www.danielwillingham.com/learning-styles-faq.html)

------
jrapdx3
After reading the article and the comments, it sure seems the subject (the
"learning styles" hypothesis) arouses considerable passion in supporters and
detractors.

But polarization may be inevitable when the subject is at best indistinctly
defined. Academic learning would surely be associated with high level and
complex neuronal circuitry, which would not seem to be easily parsed into a
few categorical formulations.

Saying someone is a "visual learner" is very likely a vast oversimplification.
Thorough neuropsychological evaluation can reveal dozens of specific cognitive
abilities and show areas of strength and weakness.

Normally the "peaks and valleys" of abilities have modest difference, but
there are individuals with great variation: for example, genius level (IQ 180)
in some areas, while adjacent skills are just average (IQ 105).

Such "unevenness" can produce major difficulty with task performance in school
and jobs, as markedly inconsistent abilities can hinder learning or
productivity in ways hard to understand and rectify.

"Learning style" may be controversial because it is a hard to study, and
assessing individuals is too complicated and expensive. The pragmatic approach
of using a variety of methods to teach a class of 30 kids is quite sensible. A
good teacher knows some students catch on better with one approach vs.
another, but in any case, for the students who can learn from any approach the
repetition would probably do no harm.

------
jqm
I can't believe people don't have different learning styles.

For instance, a guy I work with loves training videos. He will sit and watch
lecturers and all the videos in sequence and take copious notes. Not me.
Unless it's something complex and physical (like changing a car part) I can't
abide video instruction. I don't care for audio much either. It's too slow and
you can't skim picking out relevant points, nor refer back up quickly to
refresh a concept. I don't think my co-worker does this. If he did prefer to
read, he would start reading, read every word and not go back to what he read
before until he was finished.

Having observed the difference in our learning style and our relative skill
set, it appears (from my biased point of view) that I know a lot more than he
does, and I get a lot more done.

But it would be interesting to hear my co-workers take on me. I'm guessing he
probably has the view that my "rapid overview and fill-in-the-details as they
are needed" approach is flighty, dangerous and inferior to the systematic
linear method. And he may have some valid points in this regard. To be fair,
we complement each other and work well together as a team.

~~~
smorrow
It's interestng that you should say that, because the reason _I_ don't usually
like lecture videos is that they're too _fast_ to keep up with, especially if
you're writing notes. The worst thing is a guy talking and clicking through
slides both at the same time, and we're talking about slides with equations
the like, things that really have to be read and thought about.

Then again, I don't like real-life lectures much either, unless I've already
read the associated text for that lecture beforehand.

I wonder if people like lectures for the same reason that people like
brainstorming, group work, etc, which is that it might _feel_ like you're
getting more work done than you actually are.

------
NotAtWork
This article seems to measure something orthogonal to learning styles, namely
that multiple styles combined and variety/novelty also play a key role.

Can someone explain to me what the data in this article has to do with
learning styles as they're commonly thought of?

~~~
jfarmer
The concept of "learning styles" is something _we_ invented. It's not as if it
has any intrinsic reality as a category, at least until we demonstrate it
does.

This article is arguing (rightly) that it's not a useful way of thinking about
how people learn. Or, at least, obscures the reality of how people _actually_
learn and makes it more difficult for us to explore that reality.

------
lazerwalker
The traditional "learning styles" might have questionable scientific merits,
but Mel Chua ([http://melchua.com](http://melchua.com)) is doing some really
interesting research surrounding learning styles in programmers specifically:
[http://blog.melchua.com/2014/08/12/learning-styles-for-
progr...](http://blog.melchua.com/2014/08/12/learning-styles-for-programmers-
activereflective/)

------
erikb
While you might be able to insert knowledge into your brain with any of the
better methods there are still methods people prefer. And over the long run
you will learn more with your preferred style, because you spent more hours
doing it.

------
sarciszewski
Shorter article: Learning styles don't exist, including the specific way that
subjects are traditionally taught.

------
Retric
I think the context for this is important.

<pedantic> So, blind kids get amazing value from a power point slide
presentation... </pedantic>

Ok, now accepting their argument is clearly wrong in general case. They might
be talking about some vaguely defined average child. But, when you start
looking at a wide range of things from vision to audio acuity you find people
don't clump as much as you might think.

In the end it comes down to a cost / benefit analysis on supporting learning
sytles vs a generic education. And in _that_ context there are far better ways
to spend your money.

~~~
jfarmer
That's not what people mean when they talk about "learning styles" and I'm
pretty sure you know that. Heck, it's even right there in the first sentence
of the article:

> Learning styles — the notion that each student has a particular mode by
> which he or she learns best, whether it’s visual, auditory or some other
> sense — is enormously popular.

It's the idea that every person as a particular sense or modality through
which they "learn best" and it doesn't change with time. It comes attached
with the idea that it makes sense to bucket students into "auditory learners,"
"visual learners," and so on. That in turn informs curricular and pedagogical
decisions, e.g., "Make sure this lesson has a visual component."

I've been teaching programmers for two years, currently through CodeUnion
([http://codeunion.io](http://codeunion.io)) and formerly through Dev Bootcamp
([http://devbootcamp.com](http://devbootcamp.com)), and my personal experience
is consistent with two things:

    
    
        1. The idea of "learning styles" is rubbish
        2. EVERYONE believes it, especially students
    

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard my students say something like
"This explanation doesn't really work for me — I'm more of a visual learner"
I'd be the Scrooge McDuck of nickels.

~~~
arghbleargh
I do think "learning styles" can be easily used as an excuse to give up at the
first sign of difficulty. However, I'm not sure that it's "rubbish". I've
always been very good at spatial reasoning, so I often try to explain things
in terms of pictures. Among generally intelligent people, some of them
understand me immediately, and others require a lot of tries with different
variations on the explanation.

I would be tempted to say that the people who don't understand should just be
more willing to think spatially instead of being stuck in their other modes.
However, then I imagine how it must feel for someone with perfect pitch to try
to explain to me how to recognize pitches. I can't do it just by "trying"
harder; I don't even understand what it is I'm supposed to be doing.

This is not to say that e.g. people who are not good at spatial thinking
shouldn't still try to get better at it. But it does lead me to think that to
some extent these learning styles really are, if not genetic, at least deeply
embedded in our personalities and early childhood development.

~~~
jfarmer
You'll note that I didn't say they were rubbish BECAUSE students use them as
an excuse. What's more, I didn't say that students use "learning styles" as an
excuse, only that they believe whole-heartedly in their reality. As evidence
of the fact that they believe in their reality, they say things like "This
explanation doesn't really work for me — I'm more of a visual learner."

Why do you think "learning styles" have any independent reality to begin with?
Why do you think the specific sense/modality/medium is of primary importance
when it comes to understanding or modeling how people learn?

~~~
pjc50
_This explanation doesn 't really work for me — I'm more of a visual
learner."_

Given that people say this, what do you think they mean by saying it?

~~~
jfarmer
It means they believe in the idea of learning styles and that whatever they're
currently experiencing is accounted for by that belief.

As for how I translate that sentence into something useful for me as a
teacher, I choose to hear it as: "Nothing in this explanation relates to
anything in my picture of the world." It then becomes a problem of
understanding the student's prior experience and current picture of the world.

The modality only matters insofar as it establishes congruence with the
student's prior experience (IMO).

