Learning Styles Debate

Learning styles are not important
Learning styles is one of the four elements that have an impact on the learning profile.
Others include culture, gender, and intelligence preferences. It is an evolving concept and has
had heated arguments on is importance or lack of it. Famous psychologists such as Daniel
Willingham at the University of Virginia and Linda Gottfredson at the University of Delaware
argue that the construct of learning style is ill-informed (Sousa & Tomlinson, 2011). Further, the
two hold that learning style makes very little sense in terms of learning. Learning styles are not
important as they place students in categories that restrict their process of learning. Previous
research conducted in support of learning styles suffer from the fact that it was mainly conducted
by authors in support of their different learning models, and the same has not been replicated by
other researchers. Favourable research findings are considered strong if replicated by other
scholars who have no direct investment to a particular model. The lack of supporting research
shows that learning styles are not important to learning. Students should be allowed to go
through the learning process as free individuals without constraining them to specific groups.
Further, the concept of learning styles concerns processes that take place in the brain.
Since every brain is unique, learning styles are also different. However, Sousa & Tomlinson
(2011) notes that there is limited neuroscience research that supports the impression that students
learn through diverse styles. It is not clear how students can learn in dissimilar ways by using
neural networks that are different to achieve the same learning tasks. Thus, learning styles are
not important to the process of learning.

There exists little evidence on the essence of labelling students as specific kinds of
learners. The importance of learning styles to the process of learning is vague. A research
conducted by Valerie Dean O’Loughlin and Polly Hussman at Indiana University argue that in
the era of flipped classrooms and where learners learn largely outside the classroom through
online course materials, learning styles do not matter (May, 2018). They further argue that most
learners learn on their own, and thus even a teacher’s instructional style in the classroom matters
less in the 21 st century. Further, Hussman and O’Louglin conducted an online survey and found
that most learners used multiple learning styles (May, 2018). Some used reading combined with
both visual and auditory, and they found that no single style or combination of styles resulted in
better outcomes than another. Further, this research found that no single learning style was
advantageous over another. The inclusion was that learning styles are not important to the
learning process, and thus should matter less.
Overall, learning styles are not important, but most people believe that they influence a
student’s performance. research shows that there are methods that enhance acquisition of
knowledge such as spacing out study sessions over time, making meaningful connections on the
material being learnt, but learning styles is not one of them. thus, the popularity of the mythology
of learning styles is not founded on any empirically-supported studies. It is an unsupported myth,
and until more research is done on the topic, then learning styles are not important.

References

May, C. (2018). The Problem with “Learning Styles.” Retrieved 24 January 2020, from
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-learning-styles/
Sousa, D. A. & Tomlinson, C. A. (2011). Differentiation and the brain: How neuroscience
supports the learner-friendly classroom. Retrieved from https://www.vitalsource.com/