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MYTH: STUDENTS LEARN BETTER WHEN TEACHING METHODS ARE MATCHED WITH THEIR LEARNING STYLES

The nature and importance of student learning styles are among the most written about and least agreed upon issues in the educational literature. Broadly speaking, learning styles refer to students’ individual preferences for particular educational environments and techniques for learning new information. Scholarly attention to the potential role of learning styles in education began in earnest in the 1970s, but the concept is rooted in much earlier research on cognitive styles (Cassidy, 2004). A long history of research on cognitive styles demonstrates that people do in fact tend to think in different ways. For example, people who are field-dependent prefer to analyze information as part of a larger context, whereas those who are field-independent prefer a more objective analysis of information independent of the surrounding context (Willingham, 2009). Some people prefer to think mainly in concrete terms, while others prefer abstract concepts (see Kozhevnikov, 2007, for a review of cognitive style models). Claiming that such differences in thinking styles do not exist would be akin to claiming that extraversion does not exist.

Students will often report a preference for one type of thinking or another. Debate about learning styles pertains to a separate but related claim made by many educators – that instruction tailored to match students’ learning preferences leads to more successful learning regardless of the nature of the material to be learned (e.g., Gregorc & Ward, 1977; Dunn, 2000; Zapalska & Dabb, 2002). This idea is very widely endorsed among educators. Nearly four decades ago, Arter and Jenkins (1977) reported that 99% of the teachers they surveyed agreed that “A child’s modality strengths and weaknesses should be a major consideration when devising educational prescriptions,” and 96% believed that their students learned more when teachers matched their teaching approach to students’ modality preferences (p. 290). Recent data suggest that such assumptions have changed little over time. In a survey of primary and secondary school teachers, 94% endorsed the belief that learning is improved when students are taught in a manner consistent with their learning style (Dekker, Lee, Howard-Jones, & Jolles, 2012). Learning style matching is also widely endorsed in higher education and among parents (Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, & Bjork, 2009), and college students likewise tend to view their own perceived learning styles as important (Krätzig & Arbuthnott, 2006). Popular websites (e.g., “Overview of learning styles,” n.d.) and even the websites of university learning centers (e.g., “Three learning styles,” n.d.) assert that people learn in different ways and that matching learning styles with teaching methods improves learning.

The literature on learning styles is extensive, complex, and fragmented. There is no uniformly accepted definition of what a learning style is, nor is there a universally accepted model of specific learning styles. One useful definition that helps to illustrate the broad concept of learning styles is that they refer to “the way people absorb, process, and retain information” (De Bello, 1990: 204), although many other more complex definitions have been offered (see Hyman & Rosoff, 1984; Cassidy, 2004, for reviews). What is perhaps more important is the remarkable proliferation of learning-style models that scholars have devised over the past several decades. In an important review, Coffield, Moseley, Hall, and Ecclestone (2004) identified 71 different learning-style models. Whereas the established idea that people differ in their cognitive styles originated in psychological research, much of the literature on learning styles has been produced outside the field of psychology – specifically in such fields as education and business – which led to a poorly integrated field of research with “complexities and convolutions difficult to comprehend and assimilate” (Cassidy, 2004: 419). Kozhevnikov (2007) blames this lack of coherence on researchers’ shift toward using self-report measures to assess conscious learning-style preferences, replacing an emphasis on assessments of abilities. Often there is little attention to whether such perceptions of one’s own learning are accurate or important.

Given the proliferation of learning-style models, it is not possible to provide a detailed description of even a meaningful sample of such models here. Several comprehensive reviews are available for readers wishing to better understand the specifics of various models (Cassidy, 2004; Coffield et al., 2004). Instead, this chapter will focus primarily on the evidence for the broad hypothesis that learning is reliably enhanced when teachers attempt to match their style of teaching – irrespective of content – to students’ self-reported learning styles. Despite the popularity and widespread endorsement of the learning-styles approach to instruction, many researchers have noted that there are few methodologically sound studies that provide support for its efficacy (Coffield et al., 2004; Pashler et al., 2009). Unlike most fields of research, more than half the available scholarly literature on learning styles comes from doctoral dissertations. Although dissertations often include well-conducted research, they are student projects that are held to a lower threshold of quality than is found in published, peer-reviewed research.

The most broadly researched and applied model of learning styles addresses students’ preferences for learning through specific sensory modalities – usually visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (Arter & Jenkins, 1977; Stahl, 1999). In their review of several early studies on student learning preferences, Arter and Jenkins first outlined the type of evidence required to conclude that matching instruction to learning styles actually enhances learning. Such evidence, they explain, must come from experimental rather than correlational research, and must meet several specific methodological criteria. First, the method of categorizing students by learning style must have demonstrated reliability and validity. Second, there must be evidence that students classified as particular types of learners perform differently on corresponding ability measures; for example, students with an auditory learning style must perform significantly better on auditory tests than on visual tests. This criterion helps to demonstrate that learning-style instruments are assessing something other than simple preferences. Third, some students must be taught using methods matched to their preferred style, while others are taught with methods that are contrary to their preferred style. Finally, students in all conditions must be assessed with the same outcome test after instruction. Furthermore, to ensure that the experimental findings have utility, the participants must be representative of classroom populations and the teaching objectives and methods must be consistent with actual educational environments.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Arter and Jenkins (1977) found relatively few studies that met all their criteria. They identified 14 such studies assessing the effects of matching teaching styles to auditory or visual learning styles when teaching reading to schoolchildren. The studies they reviewed were diverse with respect to the age of student participants, the duration and method of instruction, and the type of outcome test used to evaluate learning. Only one of the studies yielded a significant result supporting the matching approach, and Arter and Jenkins identified several methodological limitations that limited the validity of this single study. Tarver and Dawson (1978) conducted a similar review, and likewise found virtually no evidence that matching instruction to learning style improves learning. They concluded that the lack of observed benefit across a variety of instructional and assessment methods supports the conclusion that students’ preferences for specific modalities cannot be matched with teaching methods to produce better outcomes.

Kampwirth and Bates (1980) conducted an even more extensive review of 22 studies of elementary school children in which researchers compared learning outcomes when students with preferences for either visual or auditory learning learned via either a matched method or an unmatched method. In only two of the studies was there an effect of matching consistent with learning-styles predictions. In the other 20 studies, there was either no consistent effect of matching or, in some cases, the observed effect was the opposite of what learning-styles models would predict. That is, students in some studies actually learned more when they were taught in their less-preferred modality. Kampwirth and Bates also pointed out that many researchers first screen participants to identify those with a distinct preference for learning via one modality or the other, and exclude from their studies participants with less distinct preferences. This practice would tend to exaggerate the effects of matching, while simultaneously making the results less applicable to real-life educational settings where all students are included.

In 1987, Kavale and Forness touched off a particularly interesting and contentious professional debate about learning styles. These researchers sought to conduct a more rigorous integration of learning-styles research than had previously been...