If learning styles are nonsense, why are we using them? Kerill Kennedy kkennedy@newcollegegroup.com This presentation can be found at: www.newcollegegroup.com/IATEFL There will be a list of references at the end of this file Please save questions until the end

A little about me

A little about me

A little about me

A little about me

What learning style models are there? Matching/meshing hypothesis: People learn best when the style of teaching/content is adapted to their individual learning style KOLB Honey & Mumford VARK Dunn & Dunn Many many others

They can be quite pretty! Kolb (original & later) VARK

Who believes in learning styles? EFL: Primary & Secondary teachers in the UK: 93% Higher education in the UK: 58% Dekker et al,2012 Belief vs Use in UK HE: 53% to 33% Newton & Mahallad,2017 HE Faculty and Students USA: 64%, 88% Dandy & Bandersky, 2014

What are some common criticisms of learning styles? TP

Relevance, Culture & Scales issues Scale validity and reliability Relevance & Culture: ‘I often wear a sweater or jacket indoors’.

Cui bono fuisset? Cicero 80BC

Logical issues with learning styles Teach geometry aurally? Teach pronunciation and speaking visually? Opposing suggestions on what learners should do Tick box exercise 12 sided shape with a dihedral angle of 116.57 degree

The Matching/Meshing Hypothesis redux “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing.” Pashler et al, 2009 Flawed methodologies Lack of evidence for matching hypothesis

The dangers of learning styles Wasting student time testing them Possibly worse learning by adhering to non-scientific ideas Wasted money Waste of teacher time in preparation and lesson prep

Common responses to criticisms Learners believe Why trust academics? Untrained researchers

Babies and Bathwater

Babies and Bathwater Is the only reason to teach things with different methods due to learning styles? Provide benefit to other cognitive skills Klein, 2003 More fun (motivation) Energy levels

Memory & Money- Test 1 For those not very familiar with UK money: on all coins in the UK there is The Queen’s head. Does she look to the left or the right? For those familiar with UK money: What is written around the other side? What is under the Queen’s neck?

The Speaker- Test 2 At the start of the presentations I told you some things about me, what do you remember?

Memory- Encoding & Interference

Old friends Primacy/Recency effect Emotion and stress Orthography vs. Phonology

Other effects on learning & retention Testing effect Yang et. Al, 2018 Revision effect/Repeated Retrieval “Repeated retrieval of information is the key to long-term retention.” Karpicke & Roediger, 2006 Coursebook design. Deeper processing & self reference Craik & Tulving, 1975 Learner Centred Paradigm McManus 2001

Summary & Conclusions The evidence suggests that teaching tailored to learning styles does not actually work at all. There are still benefits in terms of motivation, energy levels and encoding in varying the tasks and methods of teaching There are many other areas of psychology that can be explored for ways to promote learning.

Questions?

Selected References Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E. and Ecclestone, K. (2004). Is there a role for learning styles in personalised education and training?: International Journal of Lifelong Education: Vol 24, No 3.  Craik, F.I.M. & Tulving, E. (1975). Depth of processing and retention of words in episodic memory.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104, 268-294. Dandy K., Bendersky K. (2014). Student and faculty beliefs about learning in higher education: implications for teaching. Int. J. Teach. Learn. High. Educ. 26 358–380. Dekker S., Lee N. C., Howard-Jones P., Jolles J. 2012. ‘Neuromyths in education: prevalence and predictors of misconceptions among teachers’. Frontiers in psychology. 3:429 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00429  Grainger, J., & Holcomb, P. (2010). Neural constraints on the functional architecture for word recognition.In Neural Basis of reading. In P. L. Cornelissen, P. C. Hansen, L. M. Kringelbach, & A. K. Pugh (Eds.), The neural basis of reading (pp. 147K172). New York: Oxford University Press. Massa, L. and Mayer, R. 2006. ‘Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style?’. Learning and Individual Differences 16: 321-335. MCMANUS, D.A. (2001) The two paradigms of education and the peer review of teaching, Journal of Geoscience Education, 49(5), pp. 423–434. Newton, P.M and Mahallad,M. 2017. ‘Evidence-Based Higher Education - Is the Learning Styles 'Myth' Important?’ Frontiers in psychology. 8:444. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00444 Newton, Philip M. “The Learning Styles Myth is Thriving in Higher Education”Frontiers in psychology vol. 6 1908. 15 Dec. 2015, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01908 Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x Perry D. Klein (2003) Rethinking the multiplicity of cognitive resources and curricular representations: Alternatives to 'learning styles' and 'multiple intelligences', Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35:1, 45-81, DOI: 10.1080/00220270210141891 Roediger, H.L. & Karpicke, J.D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long- term retention. Psychological Science, 17, 249-255.

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