Talk:Learning styles

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Let's Make Criticism More Salient

As the organizer for The Debunker Club (www.Debunker.Club), I feel compelled to complain that the article here hides criticism of the learning-styles idea. Casual readers will get the wrong impression that learning-styles approaches to learning design are sound, even if they have some critics. It seems now that the scientific research is overwhelmingly weighted against learning styles, so the Wikipedia article should reflect that. = Will Thalheimer, PhD — Preceding unsigned comment added by Willyth (talk • contribs) 13:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Rewrite

This page needs a major rewrite - it should become an impartial article represention the major models in this area, and balancing out the views of the proponents with the views of the critics. user:PatrickMerlevede 2 November 2008

Bias

Though it is an improvement over the original page, it is still biased in favor or learning styles theory. Too many resources cited and not enough discussion of the case against learning styles. Tweeker 11 February 2006

In agreement with Tweeker, I am an Ed. D. candidate (my school with go unnamed for now), my entire dissertation is based on the theory that there is no such thing as learning styles, only teaching styles, learning is a voluntary participatory process, which can be invoked with or without a formal (traditional) teacher or teaching environment. 137.190.80.161 (talk) 17:27, 14 May 2008 (UTC)Skyhawk

Even if learning styles do not exist, the theory of learning styles does. If there is evidence that contradicts the notion of learning styles, then put that in the article. Morganfitzp (talk) 22:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Potential sources:

• University of Minnesota resources on learning styles
• Myers-Brigg and learning styles
• Tutorial on learning styles
• Indiana State University learning styles site
• Paragon learning styles inventory
• James Madison University learning styles site
• University of South Dakota learning styles resources
• Rats in a Maze Take a Moment to Remember, but in Reverse
  • Picower researcher explains how rats think

This may represent a new learning style for humans: the ability to retrace a learning path in reverse

• [1]

Daniel T Willingham's web page is an excellent source of ideas for anyone interested in this discussion

Parent Subject: learning

A search for "learning" included lots of unlinked pages, such as "learning psychology," "psychology of learning," "learning styles," etc. Next project: incorporating these related subjects into a comprehensive and useful set of entries and links...

Percentages

It has now been added that 25 % of people are auditory, 40 % kinaesthetic and 30 % visual learners. I have seen many different numbers for this, and I am not convinced the source book Graphic Design is the most credible source for this article. I wonder if the given distribution is based on research - they often aren't. Anyway, I remember Carla Hannaford claiming that 78 % of students are kinaesthetic, but some argue it should be more than 85 % (there is some confusion with Hannaford's "research" and Dunn's "research" here). Again, the statistics page on the VARK website gives a very different distribution with multimodal learners included.

There are two main problems with finding out how many people belong to which group:

1. the assessment instruments have been found to suffer from poor reliability. This means there's no guarantee someone diagnosed as auditory, for instance, is actually an auditory learner.
2. there is no validated theoretical base for claiming that people are either visual, auditory or kinasthetic. In fact, many proponents argue that some - or most - people use all three strategies in learning.

I suggest the percentages be deleted, but we could state that the estimation of how many people are visual etc. varies. Piechjo 11:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I added the percentiles and think they are important but—yes—problematic and are not critical to keep. The author of that source, Muneera Spence, cites "Meyers-Briggs and other psychological theories." The source is a lecture, so it might not be the most verifiable. However, she does fit WP:RS because she has academic, peer-reviewed publications (1, 2, 3, 4) and is an academic (currently an associate professor at OSU; 1979 MFA, Yale) who conducts research and cites her sources.

For full disclosure: I have been in her classes and therefore may have conflict of interest. —Parhamr 03:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I would like to insist that peer-reviewed research that reports methods and data be cited to back up the claims about percentages of different 'learning styles' and similar claims. With good cause, educational psychologists who research instructional methods tend to view many of the beliefs about learning styles as pseudo-science.Nesbit 04:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Those details are essential. Remove/revert/undo my edit, if desired. —Parhamr 05:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I think I will because now that the percentiles have been added there are people who disagree about them. And there's still probably no real research base for any claim. Piechjo 17:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Criticism Section

The criticisms "Evidence or Lack of Evidence?" section is...erm...bigger than the section with actual information on the subject. I'm thinking it should be trimmed a bit, or at least the informative section should be expanded upon. Anyone well-versed in the subject who can write on it? 67.70.98.102 (talk) 23:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the critical section should in general be smaller than the informative section. Here the problem seems to be that the critical section is a good start, but the informative section isn't so informative. General information should be added, but I wouldn't trim the critical section because it's the best part of the article and by no means too long in itself. Piechjo (talk) 16:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I did a little edit on the criticism section to remove incorrect - unnecessary referencing to the Demos report - the authors names are not significant. In general this article needs a re-write as it is not at all objective, it is very confrontational and does not present either position from an objective viewpoint. (Ardalby (talk) 16:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC))

The problem is no one has bothered to write about learning styles from a neutral pov. Furthermore, there are as many views as there are (competing) learning styles models. ELSIN and its journal could be a starting point. I've understood that the idea of learning styles is now rejected by most researchers, but it's popular among the masses. One proof of that are the numerous school kids that constantly show up vandalising the article. Apparentely they've been sent by their teacher to find information on learning styles. Piechjo (talk) 12:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Piechjo, that is not completely true but I understand what you mean - to be objective which this whole article is not learning styles play a part in how students behave but so does the social context, the learning context etc. So Phenemenography is another approach that combines more factors. The criticisms based on brain scan data miss the point - this is not saying there is a structure in the brain or a pattern of brain activity that means I have a certain learning style, it is saying that people have personalised views of the world which can be grouped into these rough categorise with regard to learning. It is not meant to be quantitative but it does not make it any less valid. I would still like my edits to stand as the reference to the Demos report is wrong. Hargreaves is from Wolfson Cambridge and not Exeter! (Ardalby (talk) 16:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC))

Thank you for pointing out the error. Personally, I have read the Demos report and the quotes seem to be right. I also remember reading the ELSIN respond to Coffield saying there are better models than VAK. There's also a more recent ELSIN respond. I don't think it's all a matter of some brain scan data. Learning styles have been severely criticised since the end of the 1980s and the main issue is that there's no solid evidence for any of the claims. There are, in addition to learning styles, also cognitive and epistemological styles that might make more sense. I suppose psychologists agree that there are personality differences and this affects studying. I don't, however, believe that psychologists agree that learning as a cognitive process varies from one individual to the other except to the extend that some people learn better than others. Consequently, one of the fundamental questions in LS research has been whether people should stick to their style or whether they should learn a better way to study. This is one of the many things that should probably be discussed in the article. What I'm worried about is Wikipedia being used by commercial companies as advertising space because almost all LS models are commercial products, and the trademark owners have rarely been eager to give people the right idea of their scientific basis. Piechjo (talk) 18:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I definitely agree with your last point - there is not such thing as an open source LS questionnaire - except I think that my tutor had an agreement with Honey and Mumford as she was a colleague of theirs! Pasks studies did suggest that you could cause serious problems for study if you mismatched holist and serialist approaches with students who had the opposite style. This seriously affected learning in these extreme cases, but there are too many different LS descriptors and there is an awful lot of context. As a statistician I think there are more variables than I would care to consider. Sorry I was a bit flaming before (Ardalby (talk) 20:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC))

I removed "leading to the conclusion that the idea of a learning cycle, the consistency of visual, auditory and kinesthetic preferences and the value of matching teaching and learning styles were all "highly questionable" from the Coffield et al critique section. Coffield et al conclude nothing of the sort. The only time the quoted phrase is used is in the following passage: "inferring an uncomplicated relationship between preference, peak alert and performance is highly questionable." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.224.106.135 (talk) 16:34, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Models? Theories?

Right now the Models and theories section has just one sentence under it: "Over 80 learning style models have been proposed, each consisting of at least two different styles." Thanks for that. What are some of these models and theories? It's okay if not all 80 cannot be listed here, but how about some of the more widely accepted ones? Morganfitzp (talk) 22:13, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Lettri: Cognitive Style Delineators; Hill: Cognitive Style Interest Inventory; Ramirez: Child Rating Form; Felder-Silverman Learning/Teaching Style Model; Reinert: Edmonds Learning Style Identification Exercise; Hunt: Paragraph Completion Method; Fleming: VARK model; Honey and Mumford: Learning Styles Questionnaire; Kolb: Learning Style Inventory; Grasha-Reichmann: The Grasha-Reichmann Student Learning Style Scales; Dunn-Dunn: Learning-Styles Inventory; Schmeck: Inventory of Learning Processes; McCarthy: 4MAT; Gregorc: Gregorc Style Delineator — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.82.241.136 (talk) 05:04, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Hypothesis at an inflection point, maybe worth waiting for more

An interesting moment in significant research. A social science pattern: starts idealized and rhetorical, with assumptions. Experimental evidence is weak, because the hypothesis outruns testable methods. But the idea resonates with practitioners or others, and agitprop flourishes. A new generation arrives, eager to debunk. A meta-analysis later, an announcement: the king has no clothes. It's all a mirage driven by ego and greed. Out of the ashes voices claim the problem isn't lack of evidence, but lack of decent research. A hypothesis should be disproved, not unproven.

A blue-ribbon ivory tower panel announces a gold-plated method. Sounds great, but in fact it's a pain to implement, and distorts. Random effects generate statistical results, ideas get rejected or exaggerated. The original hypothesis fades, until a new generation arrives and gives it a new name.

The gold-plated method mentioned in the article is to group students by style, assign them (blind, presumably) to one of either learning style classrooms, let time pass, then test.

Have these researchers been in schools? Kids will discover labels involved, and "learning style" pedagogy will not be implemented cleanly. Teachers will have to curb useful approaches to "remain scientific," parents will react angrily to perceived classroom differences.

More could be done with less by assessing different teacher's learning styles, randomly distributing students, then testing both student learning and learning style. That might detect teacher style impact, too. In any event, it's easier to use natural variability (different teacher's different styles) than try to create it; it's easier keep the experiment from having an influence with post-tests, and the experiment would not require lots of new resources.

Of course critics will claim that purported results reflect teacher competence, not style. Results won't have lab-room precision.

But times will change. As adaptive testing advances, it will become possible to have different styled questions for the same knowledge, some text-based, others visual, or abstract, using audio, or maybe tactile. Same knowledge, different modes. Results won't prove as much as hoped, perhaps, but this will be too useful to reject. It won't be called "learning styles," but something like "individualized response."

Brian Coyle

"Recent evidence" by Jackson

This subsection seems like a self promotion by Jackson et al. All citations are their self-publications, instead of independent assessments by others. No criticism of this work is mentioned.

I agree, and moved the above text from article. --130.230.209.68 (talk) 09:34, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Removed first reference

I removed the first refernce of this article. I doubt very much this source is considered a reliable source WP:RS. There is no evidence of independent fact checking by the authors. This appears to be an inferior source, and I am sure better sources for this statement are available. The page appears to exsist in order to sell a book, and the summaries appear to be over-simplistic and may not be accurate. This web page only references itself. This links go to questionable summations on the same page (except for the link that goes to a book).

The reference looks like a reference within a reference. I don't have time to figure it out just now. All I can see is that the text of the article has not been altered. Here is the reference that I removed: </ref name=LdPride> + Learning styles are various approaches or ways of learning. They involve educating methods, particular to an individual, that are presumed to allow that individual to learn best. Most people prefer an identifiable method of interacting with, taking in, and processing stimuli or information. Based on this concept, the idea of individualized "learning styles" originated in the 1970s, and acquired "enormous popularity".</ref name=pashler/> − LdPride. (n.d.). What are learning styles? Retrieved October 17, 2008</ref/> ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I put an extra slash in the reference templates so that these can viewed as part of this section. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 02:41, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Kolb's Model

I am not a wikipedia person, but I wanted to make a suggestion. The current last sentence reads, "Although Kolb's model is the most widely accepted with substantial empirical support, recent studies suggest the Learning Style Inventory (LSI) is seriously flawed" I suggest something that says it is one of the most widely accepted, but throughout its history has had to face critiques that question the reliability and validity of the test. A recent study has questioned the psychometric soundness of version ____. Kolb has constantly made revisions (1,2, 2a, 3, 3.1, 4)to address these concerns. One thing about Smith's webpage is that he cites older studies that critique Kolb's model. It would be nice to note which versions they critiqued. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.82.241.136 (talk) 02:44, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Good layman's inroduction

This sums it up for me. http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/04/do-students-have-different-learning-styles/ --John (talk) 22:20, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

A link which can be used in article

https://richarddawkins.net/2014/12/the-myth-of-learning-styles/ - The Myth of Learning Styles -Abhijeet Safai (talk) 13:23, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Class project?

It appears that this article is subject of a class project. I have posted at Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#Learning_theory_.28education.29_and_Learning_styles/

‎JBriggsTE201, Cieraalmanza, Martinlc, JanelleBriggs22 are you working on this as part of a class? Some of you are also working on Learning theory (education)‎. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 00:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog Yes, we are working on a class project that involves editing this page to improve it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cieraalmanza (talk • contribs) 00:50, 24 March 2015‎ (UTC)

are you working with Wikipedia:Education program? Jytdog (talk) 00:52, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

No, we are working separately as assigned from our teacher. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cieraalmanza (talk • contribs) 00:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. Ideally, teachers coordinate with Wikipedia:Education program so that you can learn how to edit Wikipedia. Doing things in this way, is not good for you nor for Wikipedia. Jytdog (talk) 01:03, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I was asked at the board i linked to above, to say what is going wrong. Students are adding unsourced content, too closely paraphrased content, nonencyclopedic content (long, chatty, too much quotation), not considering UNDUE, and are adding the same content to the two different articles, obliterating the difference between them. typical student errors. Jytdog (talk) 16:14, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not involved in a school project. Martinlc (talk) 00:21, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Sudbury Model of Education not relevant to article

I suggest removing the section on the Sudbury Model as it describes a model of education or (un)schooling, not a model describing individuals' potential learning styles. Smilingpolitely (talk) 11:47, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Done. Smilingpolitely (talk) 11:38, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Neil Fleming section

@Heather Lander: Hi, in this diff, you changed the ref to a substantially older one, and changed a fair amount of content. Could you explain your rationale please? Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 23:28, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

The original reference was to Leite's article discussing the statistical validity of the VARK model - the reference I changed it to is for the article where Fleming introduced his model, that being the more relevant reference for the content under discussion. I changed the content substantially because what was there before just wasn't correct - the 4 modalities weren't the correct ones for Fleming's VARK model, and the description of the modalities was not correct. There was already a reference to a web page describing the 4 modalities and multimodality included, so I haven't added any additional references to back-up my changes, since they are already supported the the existing reference. Heather Lander (talk) 23:51, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, so looking at it closely, I'm not sure that either the original ref, or the one you replaced it with, is in the right place. References are not intended to be external links, providing more information about a topic - they are intended to support assertions. At the point in the sentence where the original reference was placed, no assertion had yet been made. However, of the two of them, Leite's paper is more recent, and is secondary, so is probably the better one to use. I think a better approach would be to actual reposition the source so that it's actually supporting an assertion; if you feel that there are issues with the content, can you find an alternative (secondary) source to use to support your changes? Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 01:31, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Joshua Cuevas publications

As I said in my edit summary reverting this edit, the edit in question is full of external links in the body text which is prohibited per WP:EL, and the edit looks like WP:CITESPAM of Joshua Cuevas's publications, which we've had problems with in this article before, e.g.: Special:Diff/736139549, Special:Diff/734089885, Special:Diff/732840790, Special:Diff/729499125, Special:Diff/723608172. Wikipedia is not for self-promotion of an author's publications. The prominent external link to Josh Cuevas's bio in the body text, plus the fact that the paragraph is all about Cuevas's publications, plus the fact that the editor's IP address (67.38.24.144) is in northern Georgia near the University of North Georgia which hosts the bio page page to which the aforementioned prominent external link points, really looks to me like self-promotion and undue weight on Cuevas's publications. Biogeographist (talk) 19:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Note that one of Cuevas's publications was already listed in Learning styles § Further reading, which is fine. I would not object to a sentence or two about it somewhere (without, of course, the inappropriate external links in the article body). But what I am questioning is the need for a whole paragraph (indeed a whole section) about Cuevas's publications. Biogeographist (talk) 22:00, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

OK, I've edited the paragraph into what appears to be an appropriate form, without the problems mentioned above. Biogeographist (talk) 22:37, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Analyzing dates

We currently have a sentence in Learning styles#David Kolb's model that says:

The most recent work by Kolb that Smith cited is from 2005, and Smith did not address the changes in the 2015 edition of Kolb's book Experiential Learning.

I'm inclined to remove this. The fact that a 2005 source did not review the 2015 edition should not surprise anyone, but having this sentence present in the article implies that the 2015 editing changed so significantly that it has overcome all of the objections. We have no source saying that, or even implying it, and the source given for there being any changes at all is just Kolb's book. I think that this is kind of statement is prohibited by Wikipedia:No original research, as it is exactly "analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to...imply a conclusion not stated by the sources." Some editor personally looked at the dates of these sources, personally analyzed them, and personally concluded that it was possible that Smith's objections might have been overcome by some unspecified changes in the latest edition of Kolb's book. This is a NOR violation, and IMO it should be removed completely. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:20, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I restored the sentence in question after it had been removed. I wrote the sentence originally. Now that the WP:OR problem with the sentence has been so clearly stated, I agree that the sentence is too strong, but I don't agree that it implies that the 2015 editing changed so significantly that it has overcome all of the objections. The problem with the sentence is that I personally looked at the dates of these sources, personally analyzed them, not that I concluded that Kolb's theory had overcome all of the objections—I didn't conclude that at all, and I wouldn't infer that from the sentence that I wrote. I remember comparing the two editions of Kolb's book and seeing that there were significant changes that Smith's article doesn't address (though that was five years ago and now I don't remember the details). I wrote the sentence because when summarizing scholarship it is important to specify which version of a theory is being criticized. The lack of such specification is even more problematic than the disputed sentence, in my opinion. To be clear, the purpose is not to defend Kolb's theory against objections, but to clarify which version of Kolb's theory is being criticized. What do you think of this change? Biogeographist (talk) 02:38, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

That's much better. I can live with that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:50, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

"Unproven"

For the second time, I reverted FedericoCeratto's addition of "unproven" to the lead section. Suggesting that there could be "scientific proof" of learning styles is not an improvement! Please do not add this again. Biogeographist (talk) 15:14, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

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