
No evidence to back idea of learning styles - teslacar
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/12/no-evidence-to-back-idea-of-learning-styles
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Pulcinella
Teacher here. Unfortunately this myth is incredibly resistant to attempts to
dispel it. It is still included in teacher training and professional
development and many schools still require teachers to address it in their
learning plans.

I feel it's hard to address because, among other reasons, 1\. Its useful for
administrators. Parents and students want to feel that you are teaching them
on an individual level. Learning styles is "legitimate" enough to point to for
administrators.

2\. It's something of a personal belief for many teachers.

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StClaire
Education bias suffers insane bias. I've never seen a study (though I'm sure
there are some) where the researchers rejected the teaching techniques they
advocated.

Specific Example: I've been in flipped classrooms. They suck. Everyone hated
it. The instructor justified it by showing studies "proving" how great flipped
classrooms work conducted by people who advocate and teach in flipped
classrooms

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nonbel
Education research was probably the first field to adopt NHST[1], so it is not
surprising it is messed up. Psychology was next. The most recent (still in
progress) is physics. Sometime in the middle it happened to biology/medicine.
You can see the order is inversely correlated with the reliability of the
modern results.

[1] See eg Gigerenzer 2004 for an intro: [http://library.mpib-
berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/GG_Mindless_2004.pdf](http://library.mpib-
berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/GG_Mindless_2004.pdf)

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codingdave
But lets pull out one key point from amongst all the negatives in this
article: "Students will improve if they think about how they learn"

The formal frameworks we have come up with haven't been effective, and trying
to put them in a classroom haven't been effective. But that doesn't mean that
everyone learns the same and we should just force everyone into the same box
either. Our educational systems need work. We may not have the best answers
yet, but we should keep looking.

~~~
hannele
i.e. learning styles may still be bullshit, but they can get you to self-
reflect on how you learn.

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dwringer
Perhaps instead of considering students to have different learning styles, it
would be more appropriate to say they are more or less resistant to various
"teaching styles" (used as a catch-all term for teachers' cognitive biases
that leave some students behind more than others).

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virmundi
I've been struggling with this a lot lately. I'm in a Masters program. I'm
struggling. After a lot of reflection, it's due largely to the way the class
is taught. I need lots of examples over the field. Don't throw a wall of math
at me. Show me how to do Thing1, then Thing2, and then Thing3. I'll induce a
process.

So while it's not the types of learning offered in the article, I think there
is style around inductive learning and deductive learning. I think the math
folk are deductive learners, and teach that way. People like more, more on the
art side of software design spectrum, are inductive learners. The two don't
mix.

So neuroscientists reading this post, please to to the NSF for grant money
about this. We might get more masters level or PhD's if a) there is such a
distinction and b) we can adjust programs appropriately.

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adamnemecek
> I'm struggling. After a lot of reflection, it's due largely to the way the
> class is taught. I need lots of examples over the field. Don't throw a wall
> of math at me.

Vast majority of people are this way. The current educational system is
fundamentally flawed and works fundamentally differently.

~~~
k__
Hm, true.

In school, when the material was basic, I listened to the explanations of the
teachers, did a few examples and got my B or C.

In my bachelor lectures I failed most exams on the first try, because the
tutors were fast as hell. They did all school math in the first week and kept
that pace to the end of the semester. I switched my learning style from going
to lectures to reading stuff at home at my own pace, which worked much better.

In my master I didn't even bother with lectures at all, I just started a
remote degree program, where they sent me all the material so I could learn
myself at home.

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LifeQuestioner
One thing I notice in learning styles - is they don't seem to test retention
rate months later.

I may be able to cram my brain with crap - but in 2 months time, i'll be able
to remember what I can visualise, not what i heard or learnt with a lecturer
yapping on about.

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barry-cotter
Do you really think this occurred to none of the authors of the linked
document? That no one has ever tested this? When you can come up with a
counter argument in less than 30 minutes on a topic that single academics have
put over a thousand hours into researching the likelihood is that this
specific question has been investigated.

~~~
LifeQuestioner
I'm an academic.

If you have a link to a paper which tests this please do send me a link.

Note: your post came across very attacking - without adding any insight, info
or sharing knowledge.

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projektir
I could very well agree that there's no evidence for, but I am not convinced
that there's sufficient evidence against.

I'm finding it really, really hard to believe that everyone learns the same
way... and I don't trust the current system to be capable of making such an
assessment, learning styles or not. It may not be written vs visual, it may be
something else, maybe it's a lot more complex.

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pixel
Total anecdote, but I absolutely learn better when
graphs/charts/drawings/illustrations are part of the instructional material.

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xname2
The statement could be true, but has nothing to do with learning styles.
Because everyone "learn better when graphs/charts/drawings/illustrations are
part of the instructional material".

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zaccus
I don't. I learn better through reading. Visual aids are rarely very helpful
for me, unless I already understand what I'm looking at.

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rcthompson
I guess this explains why every time I took one of those "learning style"
tests, I always scored equally on each style.

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dcre
Not really :)

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jacobsimon
So what? It's certainly still beneficial to present and repeat information in
different formats.

~~~
Pulcinella
That's not really what learning styles were supposed to be. Commonly, with
learning styles a student was considered an auditory, visual, or kinesthetic
learner.

Timmy is an auditory leaner? He should learn to calculate voltage through
lectures and song.

Timmy is a visual learner? He should learn to calculate voltage through
pictures and diagrams.

Timmy is a kinesthetic learner? He should learn to calculate voltage through
dance.

It's a shallow understanding of how learning really happens. No one learned
how to throw a football by singing about it and no one has a strong
understanding of circuits and how to design them just by listening to
lectures.

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brerrabbit
My entire life, listening to classroom lecture has been an absolute struggle
for me. It requires a monumental amount of effort and willpower to pay
attention, process and retain all that info at the same time.

On the other hand, I can read something once and If I can handle the material,
I typically retain it effortlessly. I know a lot of other people that cannot
self-educate via reading.

This study seems to be suggesting something similar to a denial that
introverted and extroverted types exist. How can they not?

Im a little suspicious of the proposition:

poor results when current matching styles to lessons = learning styles do not
exist.

~~~
k__
Is this really a problem with teaching styles?

Sounds more like a general problem that also happens to impact your learning
performance.

