I despair of ever weaning gullible teachers of the nonsense of teaching to learning style. Educational consultants are not going drop learning style theory from their repertoire while there is good money to be made. Thank your to Donald Clark and Wil Thalheimer for the following from the Association of Psychological Science:
"We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice. Thus, limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number. However, given the lack of methodologically sound studies of learning styles, it would be an error to conclude that all possible versions of learning styles have been tested and found wanting; many have simply not been tested at all." (p. 105)Reference: Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9, 105-119.
Hi there
ReplyDeleteI am interested to see that the title reads "Teaching to learning styles does not work" when the excerpt from the Assoc of Psychological Science does not say this - it says that many versions have simply NOT been tested at all.
Furthermore it would interest me to find out what you would suggest the educator uses instead of learning styles as this too is not included in this post - or perhaps I have missed it in an earlier/subsequent post.
And to put your mind at ease I am not a particular proponent of teaching to learning styles. I just believe that the title of this post is misleading and your lack of alternatives for educators is unhelpful and a touch arrogant.
Regards
Anon
Jhb
Yes Anon, you're right. My comment went beyond the presented evidence. And yes, back when I had time for longer posts I did indeed do an extensive post on learning styles and multiple intelligences as part of a series om mind myths. The bottom line for teachers is to teach according to the nature of the subject matter instead of to some putative learning style.
ReplyDeleteSee the previous post here:Mind myth 7: Learning styles and multiple inteligences. You can find the other mind myth posts (1 to 9) by following the mind myth link under Labels in the right hand menu. Please feel free to comment further.
Leon