Tag Archive for: learning styles

Jane Bozarth Pledges $1000 to the Learning Styles Challenge

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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.

Top 10 Reasons to Write a Blog Post Debunking the Learning Styles Myth

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To honor David Letterman soon after his sign off, I’ll use his inverted top-10 design.

The following represent the Top 10 Reasons to Write a Blog Post Debunking the Learning Styles Myth:

10. Several scientific review articles have been published showing that using learning styles to design learning produces no appreciable benefits. See The Debunker Club resource page on learning styles.

9. If you want to help your readers create the most effective learning interventions, you’d do better focusing on other design principles, for example those put forth in the Serious eLearning Manifesto, the Decisive Dozen Research, the Training Maximizers Model, or the books Make It Stick, How We Learn, or Design for How People Learn.

8. There are already great videos debunking the learning-styles myth (Tesia Marshik, Daniel Willingham), so you’re better off spreading the word through your own blog network; through Twitter, Hangouts, and LinkedIn; and with your colleagues at work.

7. The learning styles myth is so pervasive that the first 17 search topics on Google (as of June 1, 2015) continue to encourage the learning styles idea — even though it is harmful to learners and wasteful as a learning method. Just imagine how many lives you would touch if your blog post jumped into the top searches.

6. It’s a total embarrassment to the learning fields (the K-12 education field, the workplace training field, higher education). We as members of those fields need to get off our asses and do something. Haven’t teachers suffered enough blows to their reputation than to have to absorb a pummeling from articles like those in The New York Times and Wired Magazine? Haven’t instructional designers and trainers been buffeted enough by calls for their inability to maximize learning results?

5. Isn’t it about time that we professionals took back our field from vendors and those in the commercial industrial complex who only want to make a buck, who don’t care about the learners, who don’t care about the science, who don’t care about anything but their own special interests? Do what is right! Get off the mat and put a fist in the mouth of the learning-styles industrial complex!

4. Write a blog post on the learning-styles myth because you can have a blast with over-the-top calls to action, like one I just wrote in #5 above. Boy that was fun!

3. There’s some evidence that directly confronting advocates of strong ideas — like learning-styles true believers — will only make them more resistant in their unfounded beliefs. See the Debunkers Handbook for details. Therefore, our best efforts may be to focus not on the true believers, but on the general population. In this, our goal should be to create a climate of skepticism in terms of learning styles. You can directly help in this effort by writing a blog post, by taking to Twitter and LinkedIn, by sharing with your colleagues and friends.

2. Because you’re a professional.

1. Because the learning-styles idea is a myth.

Insert uplifting music here…

June is Debunk Learning Styles Month

June is Debunk Learning Styles Month in the learning field!

One of the most ubiquitous myths in the world today, learning styles has risen to a crescendo within the workplace learning field and in education as well. The idea is that if you diagnose learners on their learning styles and then tailor learning methods to the different style — that learning results will improve.

It’s a widespread belief, but it’s actually false. Research evidence suggests that using learning styles to guide learning design does not improve learning results.

The good news is that there are several solid research reviews that demonstrate this. Indeed, The Debunker Club, which I organize, has compiled some excellent resources for folks who want to see the evidence.

To see The Debunker Club resource page on learning styles, click here.

To join The Debunker Club in debunking learning styles now (June 2015), click here.

To become a member of The Debunker Club, click here.

 

 

Will Thalheimer Interviewed by Brent Schlenker

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I had the great pleasure of being interviewed recently by Brent Schlenker, long-time elearning advocate. We not only had a ton of fun talking, but Brent steered us into some interesting discussions.

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He's created a three-part video series of our discussion:

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Brent is a great interviewer–and he gets some top-notch folks to join him. Check out his blog.