The training industry is a very trend-driven community feeding of any concept or theorem by linking them to buzzwords such as “e-learning”, “m-learning”, “blended learning” and of course “learning styles”. The latter has been the recent focus of many researchers, bloggers and even has made the January 2014 issue of T + D magazine published by the American Society of Training & Development (ASTD) under an article titled “Learning Styles: Going, Going, Almost Gone” by Pat Galagan, editor-at-large for ASTD. Galagan claims that “Although students do have preferences about how they learn, the evidence shows they absorb information just as well whether or not they encounter it in their preferred mode”. Really? I immediately thought “Darn it, there goes my website!” Galagan’s article and the commentary of all the folks referenced in it were the inspiration for this post. I aim to answer the following questions about the notion of learning styles without boring you to death: Where does it come from? Is there really no evidence of its use in achieving positive learning outcomes? Why should we care?
In the beginning… there were styles?
People learn differently. This simple statement tells us that each of us have a specific way to learn and learning styles exist since our beginning as humans. For the purpose of this post, the birth of learning styles as theory comes from the research of David A. Kolb and Roger Fry in the 1970s which gained massive popularity with Kolb’s book Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development (1984). The book incorporates and redefines the learning process based on methodology set by Dewey, Lewin and Piaget. The result is the Learning Styles Inventory (LSI) which is a survey helping the learner become aware of his or her learning styles from each or the combination of these domains: Active Experimentation (AE), Concrete Experience (CE), Reflective Observation (RO) and Abstract Conceptualization (AC).
Kolb’s four learning styles
What about evidence?
Sure, there’s no tantalizing evidence. However, here are some results from a few peer-reviewed journals:
A study of 67 secondary school girls studying Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) in Australia showed that:
Visual learning style dominates the secondary school CSL girls instead of auditory learning style as suggested by previous research.
Auditory learning style is most effective in oral Chinese; whereas kinaesthetic learning style is most effective in written Chinese among the girls studying CSL.
Girls with single learning style can achieve better test results in CSL than those with combined learning styles. (Ren, 2013, p.28)
And…
Learning styles have been noted to change in various environments (Lidon et al., 2011; Nulty and Barrett, 1996) and over time (Nulty and Barrett, 1996); however, the amount of time needed for changes to occur is not evident in the literature.(McKim et al., 2013, p. 122).
Why even care?
I think learning styles have been abused as a concept. Many people took Colin Rose’s book on Accelerated Learning (1985) and declared (in their minds) the learning styles are four: Visual, Auditory, Read\Write and Kinaesthetic (VARK). Why limit the set of preferences of human learning to four senses? The importance of learning styles is mostly related to the facilitator, not the learner. Traditionally, many companies put a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in front of a group and call that training. Awareness of learning styles can help facilitators recognize that learning is In the same fashion company employees serve customers, learning facilitators should serve their learners.
Resources
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
Lidon, L, R. Rebollar and C. Möller. (2011). A collaborative learning environment for management education based on experiential learning. Innovations in education and teaching international 48(3): 301-312.
McKim, B. R., Latham, L., Treptow, E., & Rayfield, J. (2013). A repeated measures study of the short-term influences of high-impact practices on college students’ learning styles. NACTA Journal, 57(3), 122-128. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1445180908?accountid=10610
Nulty, D.D. and M.A. Barrett. 1996. Transitions in students’ learning styles. Studies in Higher Education 21(3), 333-345.
Ren, G. (2013). Which learning style is most effective in learning chinese as A second language. Journal of International Education Research, 9(1), 21. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1433387229?accountid=10610
