THEORY ON LEARNING STYLES
As you have traversed through your early and higher education, you may have noticed you have adapted preferences or picked up habits and techniques for learning and retaining information. The ways in which you learn and study may differ from others studying the same topic. Theorists and educators refer to these as learning styles.
READ the first 3 pages of Pashler et al’s article to get an idea of how Learning Styles Theory developed
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab There are two main learning style theories discussed in this module: David Kolb’s Learning Style Theory and Neil Fleming’s VARK Learning Style Model.
However, there is much debate on whether learning styles are essential to pedagogical scenarios. For this reason, it is more important that a tutor focuses on their ability to present information in different ways. This could mean explaining a concept to a student using different words, or it could mean being able to show them a video, article, or diagram that could better help them understand the topic. For tutors, this means adaptability. Practice your ability to change course, and alter the way you communicate to more effectively reach students.
***A Note of Caution***
Pashler et al.’s literature review was groundbreaking upon its release because it is critical of the “meshing hypothesis,” which asserts that “instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preferences of the learner” (105). In fact, they found:
Our review of the literature disclosed ample evidence that children and adults will, if asked, express preferences about how they prefer information to be presented to them. There is also plentiful evidence arguing that people differ in the degree to which they have some fairly specific aptitudes for different kinds of thinking and for processing different types of information. However, we found virtually no evidence for the interaction pattern mentioned above, which was judged to be a precondition for validating the educational applications of learning styles. 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.
While we would do well to keep the researchers’ findings in mind—-and subsequent articles, such as this one from the APA and this one from The Atlantic that question whether learning styles are innate or even whether learning styles-focused instruction is effective —-tutors and instructors often find that presenting the same information in different ways can help all learners. For instance, when brainstorming an essay topic, tutors might ask a student to try freewriting. It that approach does not seem to work, switching to mapping out ideas might be a solution. Then, there are times where talking through ideas is most useful. In the end, it may turn out to be that we all switch between modes of learning, and what works well for one assignment may not work as well for a different assignment. As a 2019 report from the American Psychological Association notes, “Educators spend time and money tailoring lessons to certain learning styles for different students even though all [emphasis added] students would benefit from learning through various methods.”
Follow the links below to learn more about each theory
