Learning Styles - do they matter?

Learning Styles

For a long time, it has been accepted thinking that everyone has a preferred learning style (as originally described by Kolb). According to the Skills you Need website, there are 8 styles (but different models have different numbers of learning styles):

The linguistic learner

The naturalist

The musical or rhythmic learner

The kinesthetic learner

The visual and spatial learner

The logical or mathematical learner

The interpersonal learner

The intrapersonal learner

You can do a simple quiz here to help you identify which style(s) you prefer and the Skills you Need website outlines definitions for the different learners.

Theory of Learning Styles challenged.

However, more recently this accepted theory has been challenged. It is now considered by many to be a "neuromyth". An article published on the BBC last week called Exams 2018: The 'myth' of the visual learner outlines the latest research that matching teaching to a student's preferred learning style doesn't necessarily help them learn any better. If you are taught in the way you prefer, then you may think you've learned better but in fact this may not have any affect on your ability or your resulting marks in an assessment. Research suggests that other factors have an influence on this such as what subject it is or whether we are new to a subject or not.

Carol Lethaby's article "Four reasons to avoid learning styles - and one alternative" on the British Council website summarises the research and recommends helping learners make connections with what they already know.

Photo: CC0 from https://pixabay.com/en/learn-word-scrabble-letters-wooden-1820039/

Learning styles and revision

Some references to the research which is summarised in these articles would be useful so that the argument for both sides could be followed up. There isn't the time to look further in to this here, but some advice from the BBC article for revision may be more useful to finish with:

• Test yourself
• Spread study over time
• Make you revision varied - mixing up problem types and topics. 

Just reading through notes is unlikely to be the most effective way to revise.