The Myth of Learning Styles “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” This quote, by Ignacio Estrada, encapsulates the current American view of the learning styles theory. What learning style do you prefer to learn by? Some styles are more dominantly taught by educators than others. Is this fair? From the eyes of many, this would give some people a privilege that other people might not have based on their individual learning style. What is the truth about learning styles? Do they really affect how people learn? The prevailing view of learning styles among people in the U.S. is mostly one sided. Terry Farwell gives the basic definitions of the three main learning styles in an article entitled, “Visual,
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Anyone who has the desire can take a learning style test that supposedly tells them their preferred style. Sadly, many people are wasting their time on these tests. Experts have concluded that the misinterpretations of learning styles have, and continue to, cause harm (Jarrett). Many people waste money on these tests and a lot of teachers focus too much on incorporating all the learning styles into their teachings (Jarrett). People need to be informed of the truth about learning styles. Many studies bring to light the inaccuracy of the learning styles theory, as well as the many hidden errors that lead people to believe in an idea that is not true. One study is recorded in the article “Learning Styles Debunked”, which contends “any experiment designed to test the learning-styles hypothesis would need to classify learners into categories and then randomly assign the learners to use one of several different learning methods, and the participants would need to take the same test at the end of the experiment.” The website shows further evidence that few experiments testing this hypothesis have used this research technique, and the surveys that did showed to contradict the …show more content…
He starts out by saying that in a study, a group of students are randomly assigned to a classroom that has texts to read, and another group of students are randomly assigned to a classroom in a hands-on setting. He continues to say that at the end of one week, the students are tested over the information they learned. Glenn writes that of the students in the hands-on classroom, the kinesthetic learners, or people that prefer to learn hands on, enjoy their lesson much more than the verbal learners. He says that the kinesthetic learners do better on the test averaging a 95, while the verbal learners score an average of 80 on the test. Pashler jumps in to say, “that might seem like strong evidence for the learning-styles hypothesis. Not so fast” (Glenn). In the second classroom, the one in which the students learned by reading texts, the verbal students enjoyed the lesson much more than the kinesthetic students, but both types of learners averaged a 70 on the test, Glenn writes. Continuing, he writes that the conclusion to draw from this study is that even though the verbal learners enjoyed the lesson less in the hands-on setting, they learned the information better in this form of learning. This shows that people can learn by any method that goes hand in hand with the subject
Anyone who has the desire can take a learning style test that supposedly tells them their preferred style. Sadly, many people are wasting their time on these tests. Experts have concluded that the misinterpretations of learning styles have, and continue to, cause harm (Jarrett). Many people waste money on these tests and a lot of teachers focus too much on incorporating all the learning styles into their teachings (Jarrett). People need to be informed of the truth about learning styles. Many studies bring to light the inaccuracy of the learning styles theory, as well as the many hidden errors that lead people to believe in an idea that is not true. One study is recorded in the article “Learning Styles Debunked”, which contends “any experiment designed to test the learning-styles hypothesis would need to classify learners into categories and then randomly assign the learners to use one of several different learning methods, and the participants would need to take the same test at the end of the experiment.” The website shows further evidence that few experiments testing this hypothesis have used this research technique, and the surveys that did showed to contradict the …show more content…
He starts out by saying that in a study, a group of students are randomly assigned to a classroom that has texts to read, and another group of students are randomly assigned to a classroom in a hands-on setting. He continues to say that at the end of one week, the students are tested over the information they learned. Glenn writes that of the students in the hands-on classroom, the kinesthetic learners, or people that prefer to learn hands on, enjoy their lesson much more than the verbal learners. He says that the kinesthetic learners do better on the test averaging a 95, while the verbal learners score an average of 80 on the test. Pashler jumps in to say, “that might seem like strong evidence for the learning-styles hypothesis. Not so fast” (Glenn). In the second classroom, the one in which the students learned by reading texts, the verbal students enjoyed the lesson much more than the kinesthetic students, but both types of learners averaged a 70 on the test, Glenn writes. Continuing, he writes that the conclusion to draw from this study is that even though the verbal learners enjoyed the lesson less in the hands-on setting, they learned the information better in this form of learning. This shows that people can learn by any method that goes hand in hand with the subject