Learning styles, a big joke?

Since 2010, academic and mainstream articles have been multiplying in the United States to denounce what some call the "sham" or "fallacy" of learning styles. Not that this concept does not cover certain obvious realities: learners do not all learn in the same way, you don't need a degree in psychology or neuroscience to know that; but what is being strongly questioned today is the use made of this theory in the design and delivery of training courses, whether in person or online. Educators are thus the first to be affected by the questioning of the importance of learning styles.

No research verification of the theory

So what are the terms of this challenge? In an article entitled "Challenging the Notion of Learning Styles," Maryellen Weimer summarizes them as follows: 

• Learning styles proponents believe that "learners have learning preferences that are independent of their abilities and content, and that have sigificative implications for their learning" and that the instructor must therefore take these different styles into account when facilitating a course, offering the same content, for example, in a way that satisfies the auditory, the visual, and the kinesthetic, through different mediations.
  
  
• Or, under experimental conditions (i.e.: with controlled and reproducible conditions of realization), learning on a given medium is achieved in the same way in different learners, regardless of the presentation mode chosen and the learning style announced by the student.
  
  
• This means, then, that the theory of learning styles is not supported by objective research data. And that we should stop encouraging teachers and trainers to adapt to the learning styles of their learners. It's pointless.

In fact, it was an article published in December 2009 in the Association for Psychological Science journal under the title Learning Styles Debunked: There is no Evidence Suporting Auditory and Visual Learning, Psychologists Say, that set the ball rolling. Since then, the implications of this discovery for educators and their teaching methods have continued to grow. 

According to C. Riener and D. Willingham in their article "The Myth of Learning Styles", it will not be easy to abandon the theory of learning styles, because it has passed into "common knowledge", the kind that seems so obvious that it no longer seems necessary to discuss it, even if it is false.

Instructional engineering: we know what works

But let's make an effort and forget about learning styles then. What are we going to rely on from now on to support our students' learning in the best way possible?

We can use two sets of data and concepts.

First, the basic principles of instructional engineering and adult learning. This is the path advised by, for example, Joel Gardner on his Reflection on Instructional Design blog, in a post titled The 5 Most Fundamental Strategies for Helping Your Students Learn, which highlights principles conceptualized by M.D. Merrill that we are all somewhat familiar with:

• Task-centered learning;
• New information related to learners' prior knowledge;
• Contextual learning that promotes problem solving;
• Rapid application of new knowledge and skills;
• Engagement in learning via discussions, activities, and planning for situational transfer of learning. 

These principles have been developed from numerous empirical and "controlled situation" experiments. Indeed, by applying them to everyday life we see that they are relevant and that if we translate them into our pedagogical scenarios and in particular into the activities proposed to the learners, the quality of learning is clearly improved.

What we now know about how memory works

We can also draw on recent developments in knowledge about how memory works and their pedagogical implications. 

It appears that:

• When one has a large body of interrelated information to integrate, it is better to work on each of them a little bit simultaneously and do this several times until one masters the whole, rather than trying to fully integrate one item, then move on to the next, fully integrate it, etc. This is to have a vision of the overall coherence of what is to be integrated, and thus facilitate learning through meaning-making.
  
  
• It takes effort to learn. Yes, this is probably bad news for all those who believe that by reading their course once before going to sleep, they will know everything as if by miracle the next morning... But effort is definitely at the heart of the learning process. But it is a matter of putting the effort where it is most effective. For example, it is much more productive, in terms of learning, to take notes after a lesson than during it. This is because taking notes afterwards involves an effort to memorize and structure the information.
  
  In the same vein, it is very effective to work a little - take a break - start again - etc. by forcing yourself at the beginning of each phase of work to remember what was seen in the previous phase. With each new step, learning becomes easier, again through memorization and structuring of information. "What we remember, we will remember more and more easily in the future," says Professor Robert Bjork, director of the Learning and Forgetting Lab at the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA). The lab's website is, by the way, an inexhaustible wealth of knowledge about how memory works and the implications of this knowledge for educational practices, and we urge you to visit it. It is Robert Bjork, too, who speaks of "desirable difficulties" ("desirable difficulties") to stimulate learning.
  
  
• Frequent assessment is part of the learning process. Whether you self-assess or are assessed, it should be done often because again, it stimulates recall and meaning of what you are learning and allows you to make connections to next steps.
  
  This article will give you more details on these memorization processes and their educational implications:
  
  Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong, mainstream article by Garth Sundem published on psychologytoday.com.

So many avenues to explore and concepts to operationalize to support students' learning processes, regardless of their styles. 

Sources:

Challenging the Notion of Learning Styles Maryellen Weimer, Faculty Focus, March 13, 2012.

Learning Styles Debunked: There is no Evidence Suporting Auditory and Visual Learning, Psychologists Say. Site of the Association for Psychological Science, December 2009.

The Myth of Learning Styles, Cedar Riener and Daniel Willingham, Change magazine, Sept-Oct 2010.

The 5 Most Fundamental Strategies for Helping Your Students Learn, Joel Gardner, blog Reflection on Instructional Design, December 23, 2011

Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong, Garth Sundem, psychologytoday.com, January 28, 2012.

Illustrations 

Top: christing-O- via photopin cc

Body text: screenshot from the Reflecions on Instructional Design