Learning styles are such a popular myth. Many teachers treat it as fact in spite of the fact there is no real evidence to support it.
Skeptic » Insight » The Myth of Learning Styles.
When I was working on my PhD I even wrote several papers about learning styles and games. I don’t recall ever being told that there was no actual evidence to support these ideas. I probably would have still published them, but I’d like to think I’d have taken a somewhat different approach.
I did this one as I was just starting in my PhD program:
Katrin Becker (2003) A Multiple Intelligences Approach to Teaching Number Systems The Journal of Computing Science in Colleges Volume 19, Number 2, December 2003, pp 6-17 Consortium for Computing Science in Colleges Northwest Conference, October 3-4 2003, Ellensburg, Washington presentation
I did this one after my candidacy:
Katrin Becker (2005) Games and Learning Styles Presented at the Special Session on Computer Games for Learning and Teaching, at The IASTED International Conference on Education and Technology ~ICET 2005~ July 4-6, 2005 Calgary, Alberta, Canada ( presentation slides pdf)
At best, the instruments which purportedly measure learning styles really just measure studying preferences. What’s more, a growing body of psychological research on metacognition demonstrates that our beliefs about how we process information and how we learn can actually be quite wrong, with people predicting superior performance with instructional methods that ultimately produce inferior results. Therefore objectively-measured improvements in performance, rather than self-reported perceptions of effectiveness, are ideal.
An evidence-based approach is necessary to prevent wasteful spending on ineffective educational interventions. Learning styles theory, despite its continued popularity, has failed to produce sufficient evidence of being a valuable educational tool. By focusing on teaching to students’ strengths this approach misses an important opportunity to encourage students to work on developing their weaknesses as well. The learning styles approach also provides an excuse for poor performance to the detriment of students who will not recognize the need to make changes or seek help.
Huh.
