Most people have heard of learning styles. Many have probably taken an assessment to find out whether they are a visual learner or an auditory learner and so on. A few months ago, the American Psychological Association published an article in the Psychology Teacher Newsletter that contained a discussion of learning styles. In the article, Cedar Riener discusses a lack of evidence in support of learning styles. Riener even discusses negative consequences of the use of learning styles in education. Yet learning styles are still ingrained into education programs and teachers nationwide strive to integrate different methods of instruction into their classrooms in order to reach the different types of learners. A quick search for blogs on learning styles brought up two to three other blogs that were written on learning styles, all of which were focused either on the glory of learning styles or on how to apply them to classrooms settings.
A colleague of mine recently posted a few interesting remarks about learning styles as well, noting that the notion of a “learning style” does not appear in any psychology textbook including those written on the topic of learning.
So, what does the evidence out there look like? Where is the supporting evidence and where is the refuting evidence as well?
My goal with this blog is to present research reviews about learning styles. I will find any evidence based information I can and present it here.
References
Riener, Cedar. Learning Styles: Separating Fact and Fiction. Psychology Teacher Network from the American Psychology Association Education Directorate. Winter 2010-2011. Vol 20, Issue 4.
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