Learning styles refers to various competing and contested theories that aim to explain differences in individual learning. These theories suggest that everyone can be classified according to their learning 'style', although various theories present different views on how styles should be defined and categorized. The general concept is that individuals differ in the way they learn.
The idea of ​​individual learning styles became popular in the 1970s, and has greatly influenced education despite criticism received by some researchers. Advocates recommend that teachers assess their students' learning styles and adapt their classroom methods to fit the learning styles of each student. Although there is ample evidence that individuals express a preference for how they would rather receive information, some studies have found validity in using learning styles in education. Critics say there is no consistent evidence that identifying a student's learning style, and teaching for a particular learning style, produces better student outcomes. There is evidence of empirical and pedagogical problems associated with compelling learning tasks to "match the differences in one-to-one fashion". Well-designed studies contradict the widespread "meshing hypothesis" that a student will learn best if taught in a method that is considered appropriate for a student's learning style.
There is a substantial critique of the learning style approach of scientists who have reviewed many studies. An article reviewed by colleagues in 2015 concluded: "Learning style theories have not yet emerged, and it is our responsibility to ensure that students know it."
Video Learning styles
Overview of the model
There are many different styles of learning styles; one literature review identified 71 different models. Only some of the models are described below.
David Kolb's model
David A. Kolb's model is based on his experiential learning model, as described in his Experiential Learning . Kolb's model outlines two related approaches to an engaging experience: Concrete Experience and Abstract Conceptualization, as well as two related approaches to the transformation of experience: Reflective Observation and Active Experiments . According to Kolb's model, the ideal learning process involves these four modes in response to situational demands; they form learning cycles from experience to observation through conceptualization to experimentation and return to experience. In order for learning to be effective, Kolb argues, these four approaches should be included. When individuals try to use these four approaches, they may tend to develop strengths in a one-handed experience approach and an experience transformation approach, leading them to choose one of the following four learning styles:
- Accommodator = Concrete Experiments Active Experience : Practical "practical" practice (e.g., physical therapist)
- Converger = Abstract Concentrations of Active Experiments : strong in "direct" practical applications from theory (eg, engineer)
- Diverger = Concrete Observation Reflective Experience : strong in imaginative skills and discussion (eg, social worker)
- Assimilator = Abstract Conceptualization Reflective Observation : Strong in inductive reasoning and the creation of theory (eg, philosopher)
The Kolb Model raises the Learning Style Inventory, the assessment method used to determine individual learning styles. According to this model, individuals can show a preference for one of four styles - Accommodating, Distorting, Deviating and Assimilating - depending on their approach to learning in the Kolb experience learning model.
Although Kolb's model is widely accepted with substantial empirical support and has been revised over the years, a 2013 study showed that Kolb's Learning Style Inventory, among other weaknesses, mis-automates individuals on the abstract/concrete dimensions and reflective/action learning experience much the same way as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in different contexts), and instead proposes that these dimensions are treated as continuous variables rather than dichotomies/binaries.
Model Peter Honey and Alan Mumford
Peter Honey and Alan Mumford adapted Kolb's experience learning model. First, they rename the stages in the learning cycle to fit the managerial experience: have experience, review experience, conclude from experience, and plan next step. Second, they synchronize these stages with four learning styles named:
- Activist
- Reflector
- Theorist
- Pragmatic
The four learning styles are assumed to be preferences obtained that can adapt either to the desires or through changing situations, rather than to the characteristics of the fixed personality. The Honey and Mumford Learning Style Questionnaire (LSQ) is a self-development tool different from Kolb's Learning Style Inventory by inviting managers to complete a list of work-related behaviors without asking the managers directly how they learn. After completing the self-assessment, managers are encouraged to focus on strengthening underutilized styles to become better equipped to learn from the day-to-day experience.
The MORI survey commissioned by The Campaign for Learning in 1999 found Honey and Mumford LSQ to be the most widely used system to assess preferred learning styles in the local government sector in the UK.
Learn the modalities
Walter Burke Barbe and colleagues proposed three learning modalities (often identified by the acronym VAK):
- Visualize modalities
- Hearing modalities
- Kinesthetic Modality
Barbe and colleagues report that the power of learning modalities can occur independently or in combination (although the strength of modalities most often, according to their research, is visual or mixed), they can change over time, and they become integrated with age. They also show that learning modalities of power are different from preferences ; The self-reported personality preference may not match the empirically measured modalities of power. The breakup of relations between these forces and preferences is confirmed by subsequent research. Nevertheless, some scholars have criticized the VAK model. Psychologist Scott Lilienfeld and colleagues argue that much of the use of the VAK model is nothing more than pseudoscience or psychological urban legend.
VAK/VARK Model Neil Fleming
Neil Fleming's VARK model expands earlier ideas about sensory modalities such as the Barbe VAK model and peers and representational systems (VAKOG) in neuro-linguistic programming. The four sensory modalities in the Fleming model are:
- Visual learning
- Hearing learning
- Physical learning
- Social learning
Fleming claims that visual learners have a preference for viewing (visual aids that represent ideas using methods other than words, such as graphs, charts, diagrams, symbols, etc.). Subsequent neuroimaging studies have suggested that visual learners convert words into images in the brain and vice versa, but some psychologists argue that this "is not an example of a learning style; rather, it is an example of an emerging ability as a force". Likewise, Fleming claims that the best auditory learners learn through listening (lectures, discussions, tapes, etc.), and the touch/kinesthetic learners prefer to learn through experience - moving, touching and doing (active exploration of the world, science projects, experiments , etc.). Students can use the model to identify their preferred learning style and, claimed, maximize their learning by focusing on their most favorable mode. The Fleming model also presents two types of multimodality.
Model Anthony Gregorc
Anthony Gregorc and Kathleen Butler organized a model depicting different learning styles rooted in the way individuals acquire and process information differently. This model presupposes that the individual's perceptual ability is the foundation of his specific learning strength, or learning style.
In this model, there are two perceptual qualities: concrete and abstract, and two ordering capabilities: random and sequential. Concrete perceptions involve the registration of information through the five senses, while abstract perception involves the understanding of ideas, qualities, and concepts that can not be seen. With regard to two booking capabilities, sequential ordering involves information organizations in a linear, logical, and random order involving the organization of information in chunks and in no particular order. The model states that both perceptual and sequential qualities exist in each individual, but some quality and ordering capabilities are more dominant in certain individuals.
There are four combinations of perceptual quality and ordering capability based on dominance: concrete sequence , abstract random , sequential abstract , and random concrete This model shows that individuals with different combinations learn in different ways - they have different strengths, different things make sense to them, different things are difficult for them, and they ask different questions during the learning process.
The validity of the Gregorc model has been questioned by Thomas Reio and Albert Wiswell after experimental trials. Gregorc argues that his critics have a "scientifically limited view" and that they mistakenly reject the "mystical element" of "spirit" which can only be seen by "subtle human instruments".
Cognitive Approach
Anthony Grasha and Sheryl Riechmann, in 1974, formulated the Grasha-Reichmann Learning Style Scale. It was developed to analyze students' attitudes and how they approach learning. The test was originally designed to give teachers insight on how to approach the lesson plan for students. Grasha's background is in the process of cognitive and coping techniques. Unlike some relatively non-judgmental cognitive style models, Grasha and Riechmann distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive styles. The names of the learning styles of Grasha and Riechmann are:
- avoidant
- participative
- competitive
- collaborative
- dependent
- standalone
Aiming to explain why aptitude tests, school grades, and classroom performance often fail to identify real abilities, Robert Sternberg lists the various cognitive dimensions of his book Thinking Style . Some other models are also often used when examining cognitive styles; some of these models are described in Sternberg's edited books, such as the Perspective on Thinking, Learning, and Cognitive Style .
NASSP model
In the 1980s, the National Association of High School Principals (NASSP) established a task force to study learning styles. The task force defines three broad categories of styles - cognitive, affective, and physiological - and 31 variables, including the perceptual strength and preferences of the Barbe and VBU models, but also many other variables such as the need for structure, type of motivation, time preference, They define learning styles as "a gestalt - not an associated but greater characteristic amalgam than its parts.This is a combination of internal and external operations based on neurobiology, personality, and human development, and is reflected in learners' behavior. "
- Cognitive style is the preferred way of perception, organization, and retention.
- The affective style represents the motivational dimension of the learning personality; each student has a personal motivation approach. Physiological forces are body states or predispositions, including differences related to sex, health and nutrition, and reactions to the physical environment, such as preference for light, sound, and temperature levels.
According to the NASSP task force, force is a hypothetical construct that helps explain the learning (and teaching) process. They argue that one can recognize a student's learning style by observing his behavior. Learning has taken place only when one observes a relatively stable change in learners' behavior resulting from what has been experienced.
Maps Learning styles
Assessment methods
Inventory of Learning Style
The Learning Style Inventory (LSI) is linked to David A. Kolb's model and is used to determine student learning styles. Previous versions of the LSI have been criticized for problems with validity, reliability, and other issues. Version 4 of the Learning Style Inventory replaces the four learning styles of the previous version with nine new learning styles: initiating, experiencing, imagining, reflecting, analyzing, thinking, deciding, acting, and balancing. The LSI is intended to help employees or students "understand how their learning styles impact on problem solving, teamwork, conflict management, communication and career options, develop more learning flexibility, find out why teams work well - or bad - together, strengthen their overall learning. "
An entirely different Learning Style Inventory is associated with the sharing of binary learning styles, developed by Richard Felder and Linda Silverman. In the Felder and Silverman models, learning styles are a balance between extreme pairs such as: Active/Reflective, Sensing/Intuitive, Verbal/Visual, and Sequential/Global. Students receive four scores that explain this balance. Like the LSI mentioned above, this inventory provides an overview and synopsis for teachers.
NASSP Learning Style Profile
The NASSP Learning Style Profile (LSP) is a second generation instrument for the diagnosis of students' cognitive style, perceptual responses, and study and instructional preferences. The LSP is a diagnostic tool intended as a basis for a comprehensive style assessment with students in grades six through twelve. It was developed by the research department of the National Association of Secondary School Principals along with the national task force of the learning style expert. This profile was developed in four phases with initial work done at Vermont University (cognitive elements), Ohio State University (affective element), and St. University. John (physiological/environmental elements). Rigid validation and normative studies were conducted using factor analytic methods to ensure strong construct validity and subscale independence.
The LSP contains 23 scales representing four high order factors: cognitive style, perceptual responses, learning preferences and learning preferences (affective and physiological elements). LSP scales are: analytic skills, spatial skills, discrimination skills, grouping skills, sequential processing skills, simultaneous processing skills, memory skills, perceptual responses: visual, perceptual responses: auditory, perceptual responses: emotive, persistence orientation, verbal risk orientation, preference verbal-spatial, manipulative preference, learning time preference: early morning, learning time preference: late morning, learning time preference: afternoon, learning time preference: night, grouping preference, posture preference, mobility preference, voice preference, lighting preference,.
Other methods
Other methods (usually questionnaires) used to identify learning styles include Neil Fleming's VARK Questionnaire and Jackson's Learning Styles Profiler. Many other tests are gathering popularity and different levels of credibility among students and teachers.
In class
Various researchers have tried to hypothesize the ways in which learning style theory can be used in the classroom. The two scholars are Rita Dunn and Kenneth Dunn, who construct a learning modalities approach.
Although learning styles will certainly differ among students in the classroom, Dunn and Dunn say that teachers should try to make changes in their classes that will be beneficial for each learning style. Some of these changes include room redesign, small group engineering development, and development of "package of contract activities". Redesigning the class involves finding a separator that can be used to manage the room creatively (such as having different learning stations and learning areas), clearing the floor area, and incorporating student thoughts and ideas into the design of the classroom.
"Dunn and Dunn's contract package of activities" is an educational plan that uses: a clear statement of learning needs; multisensor resources (auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic); activities where newly acquired information can be used creatively; the distribution of creative projects in small groups; at least three small group techniques; pre-test, self-test, and post-test.
Another scholar who believes that learning styles should have an effect on the class is Marilee Sprenger in Differentiation through the Learning and Memory Styles. He based his work on three locations:
- Teachers can be learners, and learner teachers. All of us are both.
- Everyone can learn in the right situations.
- Learning is fun! Make it interesting.
Sprenger details how to teach in visual, hearing, or touch/kinesthetic ways. Methods for visual learners include ensuring that students can view written words, using drawings, and drawing timelines for events. Methods for hearing educators include repeated harsh words, small group discussions, debates, listening to tape books, oral reports, and oral interpretations. Methods for tactile/kinesthetic learners including direct activities (experiments, etc.), Project, often breaks to enable movement, visual aids, role playing, and field visits. Using various teaching methods from each of these categories, teachers serve different learning styles at once, and enhance learning by challenging students to learn in different ways.
James W. Keefe and John M. Jenkins have included a learning style assessment as a basic component in their "personal instruction" teaching model. The six basic elements are the culture and context of personalized instruction. Cultural components - teacher roles, student learning characteristics, and collegial relations - build a personalized foundation and ensure that schools value a caring and collaborative environment. Contextual factors - interactivity, flexible scheduling, and authentic assessment - establish a personalized structure.
According to Keefe and Jenkins, cognitive style analysis and learning have a special role in the process of personalization teaching. Assessment of student learning styles, more than any other element except the role of teachers, sets the foundation for a personalized approach for schools: for student suggestions and placements, for re-training of appropriate student cognitive skills, for adaptive learning strategies, and for learning evaluation. Some learners respond best in a learning environment based on their perception and environmental style preferences analysis: the most individualized and personalized teaching methods reflect this point of view. Other learners, however, need help to function successfully within each learning environment. If a young man can not cope under conventional instruction, improving his cognitive skills can make a successful achievement possible.
Many student learning problems are trying to diagnose learning styles to solve directly related to the elements of human information processing systems. Processes such as attention, perception and memory, and operations such as integration and retrieval of information are internal to the system. Any hope for improving student learning should involve understanding and applying information processing theories. An assessment of the learning style can provide a window for understanding and managing this process.
At least one study evaluating the style of teaching and learning styles, however, has found that congruent groups have no significant differences in achievement of the non-aligned group. In addition, the learning styles in this study vary by demographics, especially by age, indicating a change in learning style as one gets older and gains more experience. While significant age differences do occur, and there is no experimental manipulation of class assignments, these findings question the same teaching style objectives in the classroom.
Educational researchers Eileen Carnell and Caroline Lodge concluded that learning styles are not fixed and they depend on circumstances, goals, and conditions.
Criticism
Learning style theory has been criticized by many scholars and researchers. Some psychologists and neurologists have questioned the scientific basis for separating students based on learning styles. According to Susan Greenfield, the practice is "unreasonable" from a neuroscience perspective: "Humans have evolved to build a world image through our senses working together, exploiting the wonderful interconnects in the brain."
Many educational psychologists have pointed out that there is little evidence for the efficacy of most models of learning styles, and furthermore, that models often depend on dubious theoretical reasons. According to education professor Steven Stahl, there has been "a total failure to find that assessing children's learning styles and matching learning methods has an effect on their learning." Education professor Guy Claxton has questioned the extent to which learning styles such as VARK are helpful, especially since they can have a tendency to label children and hence limit learning. Similarly, psychologist Kris Vasquez points out a number of problems with learning styles, including the lack of empirical evidence that learning styles are useful in generating student achievement, but also a more serious concern that the use of learning styles in the classroom can lead students to learn. develop self-limiting implicit theories about themselves that can be self-fulfilling prophecies, which are harmful, rather than beneficial, for the purpose of serving the diversity of students.
Psychologist Scott Lilienfeld, Barry Beyerstein, and his colleagues listed as one of the "50 great myths of popular psychology" the idea that "students learn best when the style of teaching is matched to their learning style", and they summarize some relevant reasons for not believing this. "myth".
Criticism made by Coffield et al.
The 2004 non-peer-reviewed literature review by writers from the University of Newcastle on Tyne criticized most of the major instruments used to identify individual learning styles. In review, Frank Coffield and his colleagues chose 13 of the most influential models of 71 models they identified, including most of the models quoted on this page. They examine the theoretical origins and terms of each model, and the instruments are recognized for assessing the individual against the learning style defined by the model. They analyze claims made by the author (s), external studies of these claims, and independent empirical evidence of the relationship between learning styles identified by the instrument and the student's actual learning. The Coffield team found that none of the most popular learning style theories have been adequately validated through independent research.
One of the most recognized theories assessed by the Coffield team is the Dunn and Dunn learning style model. This model is widely used in schools in the United States, and 177 articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals that refer to this model. Coffield's conclusion and colleagues are: "Despite the large and growing research programs, strong claims made for the impact are questioned due to limitations in many supporting studies and the lack of independent research on the model."
The Coffield team claims that another model, Anthony Gregorc's Gregorc Style Delineator, is "theoretically and psychometrically defective" and "unsuitable for individual judgment".
Critics of the Kolb model
Mark K. Smith compiled and reviewed some of the criticisms of Kolb's model in his article, "David A. Kolb on Experiential Learning". According to Smith's research, there are six main issues about the model:
- The model does not adequately discuss the process of reflection;
- The claims made about the four learning styles are remarkable;
- It does not adequately answer the facts of different cultural conditions and experiences;
- Stage ideas/steps do not always match reality;
- It has only weak empirical evidence;
- The relationship between the learning process and knowledge is more complex than Kolb drew it.
It should be noted, however, that the recent work by Kolb cited Smith is from 2005, and he does not address the changes in the 2015 edition of the Kolb Experiential Learning book.
Other Criticism
Coffield and his colleagues and Mark Smith are not alone in their judgment. Demo, a British think tank, published a report on learning styles prepared by a group headed by David Hargreaves that included Usha Goswami of Cambridge University and David Wood of the University of Nottingham. The Demos report says that the evidence for learning styles is "highly variable", and that practitioners "are not in any way always frank about the evidence for their work".
Attention to the interpretation of neuropsychological research as a support for the application of learning style theory, John Geake, Professor of Education at Oxford Brookes University UK, and research collaborator with Oxford University Magnetic Resonance Magnetic Brain Magnetic Imaging Center, commented: "We need to be careful when moving from lab to space class We remember things visually and aurally, but the information is not determined by how it's received. "
Daniel T. Willingham's work also applies to the idea that there is not enough evidence to support a theory that explains differences in learning styles among students. In his book Why Not Students Like Schools , he claims that cognitive style theory should have three features: "it should consistently attribute to people of the same style, it should show that people with different abilities think and learn differently, and it must show that people of different styles are not, on average, different in ability. "It is said that he concludes that no theory has these three crucial characteristics, does not necessarily imply that force cognitive does not exist but states that psychologists can not "find them".
APS 2009 critic
At the end of 2009, the journal of Psychology of the Public Interest of the Association of Psychological Sciences (APS) published a report of the scientific validity of learning style practices. The panel of expert writing articles, led by Harold Pashler of the University of California, San Diego, concludes that an adequate evaluation of the learning style hypothesis - the notion that optimal learning requires that students receive instruction tailored to their learning styles- Requires type studies certain. In particular, students should be grouped into categories of learning styles being evaluated (eg, visual learners vs. verbal learners), and then students in each group should be randomly assigned to one of the learning methods (eg, visual learning or verbal learning), so some students will be "matched" and others will "mismatched". At the end of the experiment, all students must take the same test. If the learning style hypothesis is correct, then, for example, visual learners should learn better with visual methods, whereas auditory learners should learn better with hearing methods. As revealed in the report, the panel found that research using this important research design is virtually nonexistent from the learning style literature. In fact, the panel can only find some research with this research design, and all but one of these studies are negative findings - that is, they find that the same learning method is superior to all student types. Examples of these negative findings include Laura J. Massa and Richard E. Mayer, as well as more recent research since the 2009 review.
Furthermore, the panel notes that, even if the necessary findings are obtained, the benefits should be large, and not only statistically significant, before learning style interventions can be recommended as cost-effective. That is, the cost of evaluating and grouping students based on their learning styles, and then providing tailored instruction needs to be more useful than other interventions (eg, one-on-one guidance, after school remediation, etc.).
As a result, the panel concludes, "right now, there is insufficient evidence to justify incorporating a learning style assessment into general educational practice, and thus limited educational resources would be better devoted to adopting other educational practices that have strong evidence base, of an increased number. "
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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