I wrote the text here for our PGCertificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) participants. It can be shared and edited if you find it helpful (Creative commons licence).

The video by Dr Paul Penn (University of East London) is available from YouTube.

You may have come across the idea of learning styles, either as a student or as a teacher. You may have heard of students being described as 'visual learners' or 'kinaesthetic learners'. You may have taken a test which purports to help you identify your learning style and discovered that you are an 'auditory learner', a visual learner, a 'kinaesthetic learner', an activist or a pragmatist,. Common learning styles tests include VAK, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Kolb's Learning Styles Inventory and Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ).

At first glance the idea of learning styles is attractive one --after all, it is perfectly reasonable to state that people learn in different ways. Moreover, if as teachers we can identify the learning styles of our students, then surely adapting our teaching for different learning styles will increase the chance of them being successful?

In 2004 Coffield et al were able to identify 71 (!) models of learning styles and deeply analysed 13 of these. The number of learnings style inventories alone ought to be a matter a concern for us. It is clear that they can't be all right. Moreover Coffield et al identified a lack of independent evidence for any of these.

Additionally, identifying yourself or another person as a particular sort of learner can be very self-limiting. If you take on an identity that you are a certain type of learner you start to believe that you are unable to learn in any other way. If we label ourselves and others as having a particular learning style, then we are really limiting the possibilities of what we might be able to learn.

The Coffield report runs to 182 pages, but Paul Penn's three minute video provides a short overview of the key issues (contains mild swearing).

Reference

Coffield, F. (2004). Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: A systematic and critical review. London: Learning and Skills Research Centre.

Creative commons:

The problem with learning styles by John Canning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://johncanning.net/wp/?p=2574.

One the interesting things about teaching on a PGCert in Learning and Teaching in HE and supporting experienced staff though their HEA Fellowships is observing the continuing stickiness of the idea of ‘learning styles.’ I see lots of references to colleagues stating that they adapt (or try to adapt) their teaching practices to suit students in accordance with their “learning styles” (Reference Myers-Briggs, Honey, and Mumford, VARK etc.).

An awareness that not all students learn in the same way is important, but the idea that each student is a certain ‘type’ of learner is somewhat problematic. If you studied in the 1990s or 2000s you may have been encouraged to take a test to find out your learning style or you may have been told that you are a ‘kinaesthetic learner’ or a ‘visual learner’. Some of the best known inventories of learning styles include Myers-Briggs, Kolb and Honey and Mumford, and some colleagues purport to use these.

In 2004 Frank Coffield and others produced a report which analysed 13 learning style inventories in depth and referenced many more. The fact that there are so many choices of learning style inventories would probably indicate that they cannot all be correct. As well as putting pressure on the teacher to adapt their teaching to take into account every possible learning style, the idea of being a ‘visual learner’ or a ‘kinaesthetic learner’ can be self limiting for students too – if they think they learn in a certain way they can be closed to the possibilities of learning in different ways, or may not seek to develop in areas they feel weaker in.

15 years after Coffield I’ve not done much in the way of finding out why such strong belief in learning styles continues to persist, but some ideas has emerged in talking to colleagues. One theory is that the students who were tested and categorised into these different learning types are now the teachers and are bringing these ideas into their classrooms. Secondly, there remains an industry around learning styles with vested business interested. Thirdly there are educationalists, psychologists and others whose beliefs in learning styles persist.

Many are quite surprised when I tell them about Coffield et al’s report as they assumed that learning styles is an inherent part of the good practice. Rather than getting cross about this, most seem surprisingly relieved and liberated when they find out the idea has been found wanting.

As noted above rejecting the idea of learning styles does not means that mean that we accept that everyone learns in the same way.