Universities Asking About Learning Styles...?
Jonathan Firth's Memory & Metacognition Updates #48
It’s a while since I’ve written about neuromyths on these updates. Issue 4, in fact! For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, or the idea that ‘learning styles’ has been debunked, here’s a bit of background via a short blog post:
Blog: Learning Styles Reconsidered
Very brief version: the concept of learning styles, widespread in education and endorsed by 58–97% of teachers in studies worldwide, has no basis in fact. There is no evidence base to support allocating students to a particular learning modality (e.g. visual) as an education strategy. This is settled.
You’ll imagine my surprise, then, when I hear that the UK’s university application system, UCAS, is planning to ditch the ‘personal statement’ (in which students talk about their courses, hobbies, skills, etc), and replace it with six questions, one of which being, ‘What is your learning style?’. Check this comment by teacher and journalist Laura McInerney:
(Read more here).
Regardless of whether you are involved in the UK’s university system, I think it’s valuable to consider why asking students about how they learn best is problematic. Here are four main reasons:
Validity
The first and by far the most obvious problem with the question above is that learning styles don’t exist. The concept isn’t valid, and so neither is the question.
Yes, some students may believe that they have a learning style, but so what? If that is all we require, you might as well ask them what their star sign is.
Preferences – not much better!
UCAS have (apparently) defended the idea by saying that they weren’t talking about the mythical kind of learning styles, but something else. The idea that learners have preferences for reading, lab work, or mind maps, I guess?
Well, honestly – that isn’t much better. It is clear that some students tend to like one modality of learning more than another, but this makes no difference to how well they actually learn. They are, in effect, misleading themselves.
This relates to a broader, metacognitive issue—students are not good at judging their own learning. I previously discussed the idea of magical thinking in a post on study skills. Eating only foods that taste good is not the route to a healthy diet, and in a similar way, students are not well served by sticking to how they best like to study/engage with their course.
Inexperience
It’s worth briefly considering that even if students were good at judging their own learning, they have no experience to draw on. The vast majority of new undergraduates have never studied at university before (the same issue would hold if you were to ask young children about their future high school studies).
How can they know how they work best on an unfamiliar course?
Confusion
Finally, let’s not forget the students who are already aware of the issues of neuromyths. Although they may be in a minority, many teachers have told their classes to pay no attention to the myth of learning styles, and to ignore any such advice that they get online. The learning styles concept is also explicitly debunked in some courses, for example GCSE Psychology.
What, then, should such a student think when their university application asks them to state their learning style?
I am trying to imagine how I would react in that situation. Honestly, I would probably wonder whether it was a trick question!
There is a real risk of confusion by asking about this flawed concept.
I did tweet UCAS about this, but no response (so far). Perhaps they have rapidly shelved the idea—I hope so. And surely pressure from researchers and teachers could be valuable in getting them to rethink.
But currently, I don’t know how things stand.
Besides this specific issue, learning styles theory often rears its ugly head again when students get into a new course. Some colleges (no doubt to the frustration of their Education and Psychology departments) include this kind of flawed advice in their induction sessions. The high percentage endorsement of the idea has been found among university teachers and instructors too.
So, while it is in many ways a dead theory, learning styles remains concerningly alive in education today.
If you have time, I’d recommend the classic review/debunking of the learning styles neuromyth by Hal Pashler and colleagues:
Pashler et al (2008) Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence
Have a great week,
Jonathan
Last week: How to Use Mnemonics
Website: www.jonathanfirth.co.uk
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