{"id":629,"date":"2022-11-30T16:06:23","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T16:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/d2fpc.com\/?p=629"},"modified":"2022-11-30T16:06:23","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T16:06:23","slug":"theories-about-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/d2fpc.com\/?p=629","title":{"rendered":"Theories About Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Learning Style Theories are being reconsidered<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Theories about learning are exactly that\u2026 theories. Sometimes a theory holds up under scrutiny and becomes accepted as cultural fact. Some theories are not supported by the results of sustained, empirical observation and are eventually discarded completely or in part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early \u201990s, a New Zealand man named Neil Fleming decided to sort through something that had puzzled him during his time monitoring classrooms as a school inspector. In the course of watching 9,000 different classes, he noticed that only some teachers were able to reach each and every one of their students. What were they doing differently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleming zeroed in on how it is that people like to be presented information. For example, when asking for directions, do you prefer to be told where to go or to have a map sketched for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, 16 questions like this comprise the VARK questionnaire that Fleming developed to determine someone\u2019s \u201clearning style.\u201d VARK, which stands for \u201cVisual, Auditory, Reading, and Kinesthetic,” sorts students into those who learn best visually, through aural or heard information, through reading, or through \u201ckinesthetic\u201d experiences. (\u201cI learned much later that vark is Dutch for \u201cpig,\u201d Fleming wrote later, \u201cand I could not get a website called vark.com because a pet shop in Pennsylvania used it for selling aardvarks\u2014earth pigs!\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wasn\u2019t the first to suggest that people have different \u201clearning styles\u201d\u2014past theories included the reading-less \u201cVAK\u201d and something involving \u201cconvergers\u201d and \u201cassimilators\u201d\u2014but VARK became one of the most prominent models out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Teachers like to think that they can reach every student <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Experts aren\u2019t sure how the concept spread, but it might have had something to do with the self-esteem movement of the late \u201980s and early \u201990s. Everyone was special\u2014so everyone must have a special learning style, too. Teachers told students about it in grade school. \u201cTeachers like to think that they can reach every student, even struggling students, just by tailoring their instruction to match each student\u2019s preferred learning format,\u201d said Central Michigan University\u2019s Abby Knoll, a PhD student who has studied learning styles. (Students, meanwhile, like to blame their scholastic failures on their teacher\u2019s failure to align their teaching style with their learning style.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, \u201cby the time we get students at college,\u201d said Indiana University professor Polly Husmann, \u201cthey\u2019ve already been told \u2018You\u2019re a visual learner.\u2019\u201d Or aural, or what have you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing is, they\u2019re not. Or at least, a lot of evidence suggests that people aren\u2019t really one certain kind of learner or another. In a study published in 2018 in the journal Anatomical Sciences Education, Husmann and her colleagues had hundreds of students take the VARK questionnaire to determine what kind of learner they supposedly were. The survey then gave them some study strategies that seem like they would correlate with that learning style. Husmann found that not only did students not study in ways that seemed to reflect their learning style, those who did tailor their studying to suit their style didn\u2019t do any better on their tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Husmann thinks the students had fallen into certain study habits, which, once formed, were too hard to break. Students seemed to be interested in their learning styles, but not enough to actually change their studying behavior based on them. And even if they had, it wouldn\u2019t have mattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think as a purely reflective exercise, just to get you thinking about your study habits, [VARK] might have a benefit,\u201d Husmann said. \u201cBut the way we\u2019ve been categorizing these learning styles doesn\u2019t seem to hold up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Students liking words or pictures better, does not mean that words or pictures work better for their memories. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another study published in 2017 in the British Journal of Psychology found that students who preferred learning visually thought they would remember pictures better, and those who preferred learning verbally thought they\u2019d remember words better. But those preferences had no correlation to which they actually remembered better later on\u2014words or pictures. Essentially, all the \u201clearning style\u201d meant, in this case, was that the subjects liked words or pictures better, not that words or pictures worked better for their memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, \u201cthere\u2019s evidence that people do try to treat tasks in accordance with what they believe to be their learning style, but it doesn\u2019t help them,\u201d says Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia. In 2015, he reviewed the literature on learning styles and concluded that \u201clearning styles theories have not panned out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same year, a Journal of Educational Psychology paper found no relationship between the study subjects\u2019 learning-style preference (visual or auditory) and their performance on reading- or listening-comprehension tests. Instead, the visual learners performed best on all kinds of tests. Therefore, the authors concluded, teachers should stop trying to gear some lessons toward \u201cauditory learners.\u201d \u201cEducators may actually be doing a disservice to auditory learners by continually accommodating their auditory learning style,\u201d they wrote, \u201crather than focusing on strengthening their visual word skills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conversation, Willingham brought up another study, published in 2009, in which people who said they liked to think visually or verbally really did try to think that way: Self-proclaimed visualizers tried to create an image, and self-proclaimed verbalizers tried to form words. But, there was a rub, he said: \u201cIf you\u2019re a visualizer and I give you pictures, you don\u2019t remember pictures any better than anyone who says they\u2019re verbalizer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Most of the tasks we encounter are only really suited to one type of learning<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This doesn\u2019t mean everyone is equally good at every skill, of course. Really, Willingham says, people have different abilities, not styles. Some people read better than others; some people hear worse than others. But most of the tasks we encounter are only really suited to one type of learning. You can\u2019t visualize a perfect French accent, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The VARK questionnaire itself illustrates this problem pretty well. One question, for example, asks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You are planning a vacation for a group. You want some feedback from them about the plan. You would:
\n \u2022 describe some of the highlights they will experience.
\n \u2022 use a map to show them the places.
\n \u2022 give them a copy of the printed itinerary.
\n \u2022 phone, text, or email them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But of course, any friend-having human in 2018 would email their friends to coordinate group travel, whether or not that email includes the first three elements. (Another question asks, sweetly, \u201cYou are helping someone who wants to go to the airport\u201d and suggests different ways of giving directions, along with the option to simply \u201cgo with her.\u201d It depends on the \u201cher\u201d in question, one would assume!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “learning styles” idea has snowballed\u2014as late as 2014, more than 90 percent of teachers in various countries believed it. The concept is intuitively appealing, promising to reveal secret brain processes with just a few questions. Strangely, most research on learning styles starts out with a positive portrayal of the theory\u2014before showing it doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anyone looking to learn something new, should really focus on the material <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Willingham goes so far as to say people should stop thinking of themselves as visual, verbal, or some other kind of learner. \u201cIt\u2019s not like anything terrible is going to happen to you [if you do buy into learning styles],\u201d he says, but there\u2019s not any benefit to it, either. \u201cEveryone is able to think in words, everyone is able to think in mental images. It\u2019s much better to think of everyone having a toolbox of ways to think, and think to yourself, which tool is best?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Husmann says the most important thing, for anyone looking to learn something new, is just to really focus on the material\u2014that\u2019s what the most successful students from her study did. Rather than, say, plopping some flashcards in your lap \u2026 \u201cbut I\u2019m really watching the football game,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleming warns against getting too carried away by VARK. \u201cI sometimes believe that students and teachers invest more belief in VARK than it warrants,\u201d he wrote in 2006. \u201cYou can like something, but be good at it or not good at it\u2026 VARK tells you about how you like to communicate. It tells you nothing about the quality of that communication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, it might help you learn about yourself, but it might not help you learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— Olga Khazan–<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theories about learning are exactly that\u2026 theories. Sometimes a theory holds up under scrutiny and becomes accepted as cultural fact. 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