Are Learning Styles Bunk?
Friday, October 8, 2010 at 08:28PM 
May 2004
A few weeks back, The New York Times ran an opinion piece titled Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits. In it, the author takes aim at “psychological witchcraft” — educational theories that “developed in part because of sketchy education research that doesn’t offer clear guidance.”
One such example of a misguided theory was that of learning styles. According to the article:
Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” the researchers concluded.
Needless to say, this got my attention. “Lack of credible evidence” for learning styles? Really?
Looking for more information, I clicked over to the study abstract, Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence, published in the journal, Psychological Science in the Public Interest. And yup, there it was. The conclusion that learning styles currently have no basis in science.
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.
They did caveat it a bit:
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. Further research on the use of learning-styles assessment in instruction may in some cases be warranted, but such research needs to be performed appropriately.
Ok. So it is more that the appropriate experiments have not been done, rather than the science has shown learning styles to not be effective. But that leads to the question of how to perform the research “appropriately”. The authors of the study are very clear on how this would be done:
We concluded that any credible validation of learning-styles-based instruction requires robust documentation of a very particular type of experimental finding with several necessary criteria. First, students must be divided into groups on the basis of their learning styles, and then students from each group must be randomly assigned to receive one of multiple instructional methods. Next, students must then sit for a final test that is the same for all students. Finally, in order to demonstrate that optimal learning requires that students receive instruction tailored to their putative learning style, the experiment must reveal a specific type of interaction between learning style and instructional method: Students with one learning style achieve the best educational outcome when given an instructional method that differs from the instructional method producing the best outcome for students with a different learning style. In other words, the instructional method that proves most effective for students with one learning style is not the most effective method for students with a different learning style.
In other words, in order for research to be considered credible, the same information must be taught to groups of students and the ones taught according to their learning style must show better results.
And herein lies the problem. While I understand why this would make for a better scientific study, I am having trouble figuring out exactly what this would prove as far as learning styles. Learning styles look at the child as a whole…how they learn, what their strengths are, and when they are developmentally ready.
If you change the approach without changing the expectations (what is being taught and when), you miss the point.
Kids are not “empty buckets” waiting for us to figure out how best to fill them and learning styles are not (or should not be) just another another way of “getting information into kids.” Learning is much more complicated than that.
Part of the problem may be that schools do not have the flexibility to implement learning styles in a way other than as a “technique” that gives them a different way of teaching the same information to the same kids. Especially now with the focus on “standards”…kids must be at certain levels and know certain things by certain times. The trouble is that kids don’t learn in this way…learning is not always linear and learning does not happen at the same time for all kids.
In my opinion, learning styles are just too holistic of an idea to be broken down into something easily testable. In order to see whether it “works”, you would have to take do a very long term study and provide children with the freedom which you just can not find in school.
As a homeschooler, I have the flexibility I need to create a learning environment which honors and values my kids learning styles — all aspects of their learning style. One that values their need for approaches which use their strengths rather than their weaknesses, that understands their normal developmental timetable and that values their natural interests.
Understanding right-brained learners takes into account how they learn (globally, holistically, visually, creatively), when they are ready to learn (they develop 3-D visualization skills first, then their 2-D sequential skills, reading and writing will often come “late”) and what their natural strengths are (mechanical, artistic, creative, imaginative). It is not about making all kids strong in all areas. Or making right-brained kids better at left-brained tasks.
It is about realizing that when traditional approaches are not working, it is because the approach is wrong, not because our kids are broken.
It is about seeing our kids for the incredible learners that they are and not trying to make them “fit” into a school model that does not work for them.
So no, learning styles are not bunk. It is a shame that the article did not give the full picture and that people will get the wrong idea that there is nothing of value to learn from them.
Reader Comments (10)
"It is about realizing that when traditional approaches are not working, it is because the approach is wrong, not because our kids are broken."
This is wonderful, Stephanie -- the whole post, I mean. :)
Fantastic post!!! Issues that others may have with the validity of learning styles is a lack available information. And to be honest, unless you have a child that learns differently( ie, struggles to grasp concepts in the conventional manner) then learning styles may seem like 'quackery' to some. I know the truth because my daughter learns 'differently' and teaching her in a way that promotes understanding is priceless. Dealing with her issues brought me to understand and embrace the concept of learning styles, but up til that point, I had no ideal.
The real question should no longer be about the validity of learning styles, but the ability to implement them is a public school setting. Unfortunately,when you are dealing with a school system, where one teacher is required to teach 32 students, one is almost forced to find the easiest and quickest route to reach the masses. Unfortunately, what works for most does not work for all and its the latter students tend to fall through the cracks and give up. Thank goodness for homeschooling!!
Bravo for taking the time to research this matter and give such a compelling rebuttal/arguments to the validity of learning styles. I really appreciate it.
I think the early "learning styles" research had to do with kids who were not being well served by school-style teaching, and as part of justification for the open classroom and other alternative education methods (which led to unschooling).
But for a while in the middle there, some parents and teachers misinterpreted it, I think, to suggest that for each child there was ONE learning style. No one had been saying that before the 1980's or so.
If a child prefers to hear information rather than read it, and to doodle while he listens, it doesn't meant that the same child NEVER wants or needs to see the written word or can never learn without doodling. It means there should be more options and opportunities. Turning it into all or never, one or the other, was the problem, I think.
Acknowledging that learning works better when people have choices, and that it's easier to learn when more than one of the senses is involved can help anyone, and everyone.
Some people's memories are more scent-based, or they associate music with occasions, and so I figure there should be food, music, people, input, and let each participant/resident/onlooker take from each situation what strikes him as new and interesting. Then we don't need to "determine learning styles." We provide the banquet of opportunity and they pick and choose.
Unfortunately, what you found when you dug deeper into this is what happens in nearly every study published out there. People find the study, pull out the parts that they particularly think fit their agenda, and then publish those parts like they are the gospel. Pretty sad--because so many of us don't go looking at the source to make sure that what we read about it was correct.
Kudos to you for looking at the source and sharing with us!
I definitely agree that learning styles *could* be used to pigeonhole a kid as well (and in a school environment more likely). I know that my very visual-spatial kid is also extremely auditory whereas I (who am extremely left brained) am not at all. And there are varying degrees (I find it amusing that my oldest and I are pretty much polar opposites when it comes to learning styles whereas my youngest is more middle of the road, having traits of both).
And I also agree that you do not *need* to understand a child's learning style to figure out what works and does not work...taking your cues from the child is the best indicator. Being perfectly ok with backing off when something is not working really is key. Not getting hung up on the outcome.
For me, learning about learning styles (and right brained learning in particular) made such a HUGE difference in my understanding of my oldest. I personally tend mostly towards book learning, (give me a library and I am set for life) so most of the resources that I brought in were more left brained oriented/geared (things that I would have loved and would have worked well for me). Luckily we were unschooling, so I never forced him to do things that really were not working for him, but it left me at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Learning about right-brained kids gave me the insight into understanding him better and allowed me to find approaches and resources that made more sense to him and were more appealing. Others may be better at doing this intuitively, but for me, I needed the additional information.
I also think that learning more about learning styles can be reassuring for parents who are worried about giving their child more time to develop as they need to or about a kid who does not learn more traditionally. It is easy to think, my kid is the only one, what if I am screwing them up by not pushing them in the direction everyone else is going. Learning that there are other kids out there that learn like yours can really give you the support you need to take the leap of faith.
"If you change the approach without changing the expectations (what is being taught and when), you miss the point." -- Precisely! Excellent post.
Expectation is what trips most of us up. Children are wonderful and if given the opportunity to get to the right place and the right interest level they will learn. In a system which is set up to honor certain expectations, such as a child should read by____ or a child should know by _____ many children will be undeserved regardless of their "style".
Terrific post!
One thing that struck me in their description of an appropriate study was the fact that all groups would be given the exact same final test. Never mind that it would most likely be one geared toward left-brained, logical sequential thinkers, and therefore biased. The purpose, of course, is to see how well the different approaches prepare students to "fit into" the standard education norm. As you say, the author misses the whole point!
Furthermore by this test, he seems to make an overiding assumption that one approach is ultimately best for all and all students must be trained to fit into it, or "fixed". This description of an appropriate study also suggests strongly that the purpose of education is to make children better students in the existing education system. What about better citizens? Better human beings? Better wage earners? Happier people? ....(Plug in your own purpose for education and think about how you would evaluate that.)
Of course, if I want to use the best method to teach my boy fractions, I am going to use an approach that I believe best serves his preferred learning style. The test would be whether he learns it. But to prove that this is the best method of teaching him is scientifically impossible. We could teach children similar to him using other methods and see which ones learned it best, but the difficulties controlling variables are, in my opinion, insurmountable.
Thank you for posting this. I hated reading articles like the one you refer to only to dig deeper and find the researchers themselves felt there wasn't enough to make a substantial statement, just the results of their own experiment. I have read too many homeschool mother's posts about how each of their children enjoy learning in different ways. I think at this point we are so focused on testing that we are missing the fact that this is killing education. Kids hate tests, so lets fill their school year with tests so they hate school.
We need to remember to not fill their bucket with learning, but a love for learning. That often involves teaching things differently to different students so they enjoy the subject and are interested in what they are learning.
And people wonder why homeschooling has become so popular lately...
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