Jane Bozarth Pledges $1000 to the Learning Styles Challenge

I’m thrilled and delighted to share the news that Jane Bozarth, research-to-practice advocate, author of Show Your Work, and Director of Research for the eLearning Guild, is pledging $1,000 to the Learning Styles Challenge!!

 

 

Jane has been a vigorous debunker of the Learning-Styles Myth for many, many years! For those of you who don’t know, the Learning-Styles Notion is the idea that different people have different styles of learning and that by designing our learning programs to meet each style—that is, to actually provide different learning content or activities to different learners—learning will be improved. Sounds great, but unfortunately, dozens and dozens of research studies and many major research reviews have found the Learning-Styles Notion to be untrue!

 

“Decades of research suggest that learning styles, or the belief that people learn better when they receive instruction in their dominant way of learning, may be one of the most pervasive myths about cognition.”

Nancekivell, S. E., Shah, P., & Gelman, S. A. (2020).
Maybe they’re born with it, or maybe it’s experience:
Toward a deeper understanding of the learning style myth.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(2), 221–235.

 

 

“Several reviews that span decades have evaluated the literature on learning styles (e.g., Arter & Jenkins, 1979; Kampwirth & Bates, 1980; Kavale & Forness, 1987; Kavale, Hirshoren, & Forness, 1998; Pashler et al., 2009; Snider, 1992; Stahl, 1999; Tarver & Dawson, 1978), and each has drawn the conclusion that there is no viable evidence to support the theory.”

Willingham, D. T., Hughes, E. M., & Dobolyi, D. G. (2015).
The scientific status of learning styles theories.
Teaching of Psychology, 42(3), 266-271.

 

With Jane’s contribution, the Learning Styles Challenge is up to $6,000! That is, if someone can demonstrate a beneficial effect from using learning styles to design learning, the underwriters will pay that person or group $6,000.

The Learning Styles Challenge began on August 4th 2006 when I offered $1,000 for the first challenge. In 2014, it expanded to $5,000 when additional pledges were made by Guy Wallace, Sivasailam “Thiagi” Thiagarajan, Bob Carleton, and Bob’s company, Vector Group.

Thank you to Jane Bozarth for her generous contribution to the cause! And check out her excellent research review of the learning-styles literature. Jane’s report is filled with tons of research, but also many very practical recommendations for learning professionals.