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The Myth of "Learning Styles"
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The Myth of "Learning Styles"

A popular theory that some people learn better visually or aurally keeps getting debunked.

Olga Khazan
The Atlantic, 2018
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If you came of age in the late 1980s or later, chances are that you’ve been told that you are one of four types of learners: “visual, auditory, reading” or “kinesthetic.” Yet as Olga Khazan reports in The Atlantic, recent studies don’t support the conclusion that students necessarily learn better by using their preferred style. Lifelong learners everywhere will find Khazan’s conclusions eye-opening.

Take-Aways

  • In the 1990s, Neil Fleming, a school inspector in New Zealand, developed the VARK questionnaire that divided students into visual, auditory, reading, and kinesthetic learners.
  • Teachers quickly adopted the concept of “learning styles” and made efforts to convey information in ways that matched individual students’ learning preferences. 
  • More and more research, however, debunks the notion that studying in accordance with one’s preferred learning style enhances learning outcomes.

About the Author

Olga Khazan is a staff writer at The Atlantic and covers health, gender and science.

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    A. A. 3 years ago
    Excellent little paper.... There was an entire industry built around the four learning types. Strange that it didn't prove to be valid. I have always believed that a good learning course / curriculum should have a melange of all four types plus any other if feasible.

    However, a word of caution, this should not lead to intuitive models getting the wrong end of the stick. That would be like going against the philosophical foundations of modern thinking.