<p>Lately, the concept of learning styles has come under scrutiny by some psychologists, neuroscientists and sociologists. Russell French, a professor at the University of Tennessee, is attributed to introducing the term, Learning Style. He wrote in his 1975 article, “Teaching Strategies and Learning Processes” that “every human being has a personal learning style.” He correlated teaching strategies to learning styles. Further, he classified learning styles from the sensory point of view comprising print-oriented, aural, oral, visual, tactile, motor and olfactory as well as another category of sequential, logical, intuitive, spontaneous and open. <br /><br /></p>.<p>Russell mentioned combinations of styles in an individual and proposed a matrix of personal learning styles and appropriate teaching strategies. Scholar and author of the popular book, Educational Psychology, Anita Woolfolk states that the terms cognitive styles and learning styles are used interchangeably. Psychologists use the term cognitive styles, while educators prefer learning styles. For her, the term denotes the manner in which each individual perceives, processes and organises information, thinks, and solves problems, makes decisions, depending on their personal preferences rather than their intelligence. Studies indicate that the term Cognitive Style prevailed much prior to the term, Learning Styles.<br /><br />Types of learning styles<br /><br />In 2004, Coffield and his colleagues identified 71 theories of learning styles, which they classified into five families. The five families are based on biological factors cognitive structure, personality factors flexible learning preferences and factors of learning approaches, strategies, orientations, and conceptions of learning. <br />Despite the available vast repertoire of learning styles, most preservice and <br />in-service teachers appear to focus on the family of biological factors of learning styles. <br /><br />Dunn & Dunn identified five key strands for their model of learning styles. The environmental strand consists of student — preferences for sound, light, temperature, and seating design; the emotional strand comprises elements such as a student’s motivation, persistence, individual responsibility or conformity, and the need for external or internal structure; the sociological strand has student-preferences to work individually, in pairs or in teams, with adults or with peers, or in various combinations; the physiological strand discusses the perceptual inclinations of students — auditory, visual, tactual or kinesthetic, energy levels associated with the time of the day, and mobility; and lastly, the psychological strand describes global, analytical, impulsive, or reflective preferences of students. Dunn and Dunn’s Learning Styles Inventory measures the strands. <br /><br />In recent years, teachers are increasingly using Fleming and Mills’ learning style of sensory modalities, visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic (VARK) model. They use the VARK questionnaire to find out the learning styles of their students. Another popular biological model is that of Anthony Gregorc. Anthony’s Mind Styles Model consists of four types of style: concrete sequential, abstract sequential, abstract rando and concrete random. The Gregorc Style Delineator is an instrument used to determine the learning styles. Learning styles of the sensory modality are recently found to have certain shortcomings.<br /><br />Current styles<br /><br />Carol Tomlinson in her 2012 presentation at the ASCD Conference stated that learning styles have met with criticism from three groups, psychologists, neuroscientists, and sociologists. Psychologists find the 71 models of learning styles “having overlapping ideas, and difficulty in discussing and measuring the concept, operating with contrasting and competing ideas, with very few robust studies on the models, with little evidence for reliability (internal consistency of test items or statements in an instrument) and validity (do the instruments measure what they purport to measure) of instruments (surveys, tests, questionnaires, inventories) that support the models,” problematic. <br /><br />Self-reports of students about their learning styles are prone to bias. Putting students in boxes of learning styles is detrimental to the self-esteem of students and tends to hinder teacher-perception of their students. Neuroscientists do not see the validity of learning styles from the point of view of their field. They also opine, “The way educators talk about using learning styles (e.g., learning the multiplication tables by singing or learning poetry by drawing) is counter to the way the brain work (e.g., mathematical learning/reasoning takes place in a totally different part of the brain).” <br /><br />For sociologists, labeling students is divisive. They have also caught test-items which were not culture-free. What do all these mean for teachers? If psychologists find standardised tests problematic in actually measuring students’ learning styles, utilising the freely available, non-standardised tests on the internet, to find out students’ learning styles, will not yield precise findings. Teacher-observation as a method of identifying learning styles would also be suspect. This is because we know teachers are busy. Therefore, observing students intermittently to determine the students’ learning styles will not inform teachers accurately of their students’ learning styles. <br /><br />Hitherto, several teachers found out the sensory modalities for learning of their students. For some time, let us overlook the manner in which they identified the learning styles. Let us say, teacher T found out that student V was a visual learner and student A, an auditory learner. Even with the traditional “Chalk and Talk” method of teaching, two sensory modalities of students, visual and auditory, are engaged. Teacher T does not cease to talk in the class for student V or stop writing on the board for student A. To test student-learning, after using a multimodal teaching method and to conclude that student V gained only from the visual mode of teaching and student A gained only from the auditory method of teaching would be erroneous. Moreover, the real world or the workplace is multimodal, for which the learner is being prepared.<br /><br />Given this scenario, what are some dos and don’ts for teachers? Teachers should be aware that each student learns differently in every context. Teachers have to exercise extra caution in choosing learning style inventories that are reliable and valid. Tomlinson asks teachers to not over-promote learning styles in their teaching and to not label and box students based on their learning styles. Employing a variety of teaching strategies will enable student- engagement, expression and assessment.<br /><em><br />(The author is a teacher-educator based in Bengaluru)</em></p>
<p>Lately, the concept of learning styles has come under scrutiny by some psychologists, neuroscientists and sociologists. Russell French, a professor at the University of Tennessee, is attributed to introducing the term, Learning Style. He wrote in his 1975 article, “Teaching Strategies and Learning Processes” that “every human being has a personal learning style.” He correlated teaching strategies to learning styles. Further, he classified learning styles from the sensory point of view comprising print-oriented, aural, oral, visual, tactile, motor and olfactory as well as another category of sequential, logical, intuitive, spontaneous and open. <br /><br /></p>.<p>Russell mentioned combinations of styles in an individual and proposed a matrix of personal learning styles and appropriate teaching strategies. Scholar and author of the popular book, Educational Psychology, Anita Woolfolk states that the terms cognitive styles and learning styles are used interchangeably. Psychologists use the term cognitive styles, while educators prefer learning styles. For her, the term denotes the manner in which each individual perceives, processes and organises information, thinks, and solves problems, makes decisions, depending on their personal preferences rather than their intelligence. Studies indicate that the term Cognitive Style prevailed much prior to the term, Learning Styles.<br /><br />Types of learning styles<br /><br />In 2004, Coffield and his colleagues identified 71 theories of learning styles, which they classified into five families. The five families are based on biological factors cognitive structure, personality factors flexible learning preferences and factors of learning approaches, strategies, orientations, and conceptions of learning. <br />Despite the available vast repertoire of learning styles, most preservice and <br />in-service teachers appear to focus on the family of biological factors of learning styles. <br /><br />Dunn & Dunn identified five key strands for their model of learning styles. The environmental strand consists of student — preferences for sound, light, temperature, and seating design; the emotional strand comprises elements such as a student’s motivation, persistence, individual responsibility or conformity, and the need for external or internal structure; the sociological strand has student-preferences to work individually, in pairs or in teams, with adults or with peers, or in various combinations; the physiological strand discusses the perceptual inclinations of students — auditory, visual, tactual or kinesthetic, energy levels associated with the time of the day, and mobility; and lastly, the psychological strand describes global, analytical, impulsive, or reflective preferences of students. Dunn and Dunn’s Learning Styles Inventory measures the strands. <br /><br />In recent years, teachers are increasingly using Fleming and Mills’ learning style of sensory modalities, visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic (VARK) model. They use the VARK questionnaire to find out the learning styles of their students. Another popular biological model is that of Anthony Gregorc. Anthony’s Mind Styles Model consists of four types of style: concrete sequential, abstract sequential, abstract rando and concrete random. The Gregorc Style Delineator is an instrument used to determine the learning styles. Learning styles of the sensory modality are recently found to have certain shortcomings.<br /><br />Current styles<br /><br />Carol Tomlinson in her 2012 presentation at the ASCD Conference stated that learning styles have met with criticism from three groups, psychologists, neuroscientists, and sociologists. Psychologists find the 71 models of learning styles “having overlapping ideas, and difficulty in discussing and measuring the concept, operating with contrasting and competing ideas, with very few robust studies on the models, with little evidence for reliability (internal consistency of test items or statements in an instrument) and validity (do the instruments measure what they purport to measure) of instruments (surveys, tests, questionnaires, inventories) that support the models,” problematic. <br /><br />Self-reports of students about their learning styles are prone to bias. Putting students in boxes of learning styles is detrimental to the self-esteem of students and tends to hinder teacher-perception of their students. Neuroscientists do not see the validity of learning styles from the point of view of their field. They also opine, “The way educators talk about using learning styles (e.g., learning the multiplication tables by singing or learning poetry by drawing) is counter to the way the brain work (e.g., mathematical learning/reasoning takes place in a totally different part of the brain).” <br /><br />For sociologists, labeling students is divisive. They have also caught test-items which were not culture-free. What do all these mean for teachers? If psychologists find standardised tests problematic in actually measuring students’ learning styles, utilising the freely available, non-standardised tests on the internet, to find out students’ learning styles, will not yield precise findings. Teacher-observation as a method of identifying learning styles would also be suspect. This is because we know teachers are busy. Therefore, observing students intermittently to determine the students’ learning styles will not inform teachers accurately of their students’ learning styles. <br /><br />Hitherto, several teachers found out the sensory modalities for learning of their students. For some time, let us overlook the manner in which they identified the learning styles. Let us say, teacher T found out that student V was a visual learner and student A, an auditory learner. Even with the traditional “Chalk and Talk” method of teaching, two sensory modalities of students, visual and auditory, are engaged. Teacher T does not cease to talk in the class for student V or stop writing on the board for student A. To test student-learning, after using a multimodal teaching method and to conclude that student V gained only from the visual mode of teaching and student A gained only from the auditory method of teaching would be erroneous. Moreover, the real world or the workplace is multimodal, for which the learner is being prepared.<br /><br />Given this scenario, what are some dos and don’ts for teachers? Teachers should be aware that each student learns differently in every context. Teachers have to exercise extra caution in choosing learning style inventories that are reliable and valid. Tomlinson asks teachers to not over-promote learning styles in their teaching and to not label and box students based on their learning styles. Employing a variety of teaching strategies will enable student- engagement, expression and assessment.<br /><em><br />(The author is a teacher-educator based in Bengaluru)</em></p>