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The myth of the myth of learning styles
- oslem 3y agoIt took me _years_ to hone in my learning style- well after college. Learning to estimate (and to accept) the amount of effort it takes to truly learn a topic was freeing, in a way. Also, learning to identify when I could/should _stop_ learning became a useful skill for my day-to-day. My challenge now is simply committing. It takes an incredible amount of time to be competitive in a particular skill that I instead tend to generalize my skill set rather than specialize.
- brutus1213 3y agoAs a teenager and young adult, I was an extremely good textual learner. I could gobble down book chapters and retain all of it. Then grad school happened. I had an extremely hard time reading scientific papers (where generally bad writers encode text in a crazy way for readers of that sub-field to be able to efficiently grok). Now in my 40s (and a professional scientist), I find it very hard to learn from any text. Videos and interactive conversations is my comfort zone. So I'd say Youtube is my biggest source of learning. That said, I have wondered if my switch from being a great textual learner to someone unable to comprehend is due to lack of practice and my brain being lazy? I recently picked up a work of fiction from my kids' room and I was surprised at how hard it was for me to grok it (it was an old english book - Robinson Crusoe - so maybe it is the book and not me). I wish I was good at learning from all modalities again.
- dbspin 3y agoReading is definitely a skill that atrophies without use. We're all reading more than ever - but short chunks, or dense but linear technical work (like scientific papers or business texts). Reading fiction or dense non fiction (philosophy, heavier sense textbooks) requires the kind of sustained relaxed attention that does seem intuitively to be diminished by both lack of practice, and social media use. I'm trying to build the habit again, as I find my own capacity to follow through with creative ideas and work are pretty directly linearly correlated with how much deep reading I'm doing.
- cpach 3y agoI relate to this, a lot. I used to be quite an avid book reader. These days, I find it very hard to focus when reading books. The allure of hypertext is just so tempting.
- jonhohle 3y agoThis seems like a quote that would be pulled into an article 40 years from now about how quaint we all were in the past.
- cpach 3y agoNot sure what you mean. I don’t know if we where morally superior in the past. But our media consumption sure was different. For better or worse. Also, I am definitely not the same person today that I was at 25. Perhaps I had a greater thirst for knowledge when I was younger…? At least the thirst was different than it is today. I also didn’t have three kids, and because of that fact I had a lot more spare time than I have today (:
- 2devnull 3y agoPoetry and philosophy seem to be good at snapping my mind back out of web reader mode. The Bible too, but that’s sort of philosophy-poetry (or poetry-philosophy if you prefer).
- mnahkies 3y agoI think the period that a text was written does have a big impact on how digestible it is. Recently I've been reading William Gibsons sprawl trilogy and switching to that from things released in the past couple of years is jarring - the turns of phrase and general perspective is different. What I find interesting is that if you persevere through the first few chapters you quickly adapt to the writers voice. Had a similar experience reading the wheel of time recently despite it being published comparatively recently
- jmkr 3y agoSame. I used to read a lot when younger, then grad school happened. I think it made me burnt out of reading. I think practice and keeping up with reading is part of it. But I think a larger part of it is now that I associate reading with time management and stress. The brain is active. I've had this conversation with others that went to grad school. It's like the brain can't read or learn something without constant pressure and stress to understand everything about it.
- tianqi 3y agoPersonally I think so. Reading requires a high level of concentration and immersion of the brain, as well as a low level of noise signaling. Modern video, on the other hand, does whatever it takes to destroy that ability. Think of their pacing, music, manner of speaking, and occasional insertion of canned clips or memes that habituate the brain to strong stimuli rather than low noise. I think watching these videos subconsciously destroys people's ability to read - you can hold it for shorter periods of time and understand less.
- hiatus 3y agoThere's exactly one comment about the learning style myth on the article this was written in response to. Not really sure the point of the article. It seems to boil down to: there are various mediums through which we learn in myriad ways to start on a learning path.
- nedbat 3y agoI also had replies on Mastodon, and a discussion in IRC, all of which were similar to the comment on the blog post: experts telling me that learning styles were a myth, and so therefore, "learn how you learn" was kind of bogus. But yes, you got the point of the post: there are many fine ways to learn, and you have to choose the best one for you.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- quickthrower2 3y agoThe title: myth of myth. Article: myth -> strawman (learning styles are debunked replaced with (in my words) learning strategies are debunked) -> strawman “debunked”
- awongh 3y agoTLDR: “learning to learn” != learning styles. To be more specific, I feel like there’s a strong correlation between a specific type of subject and a modality that fits- even if there’s no correlation between success and someone self selecting a given modality. That feels like one of the main tasks of a good teacher. I feel that coding videos can be extremely useful for certain things. Like when introducing a new syntax it’s helpful to use the video format to point out structures and placement of syntax in real time (type definition goes here, you can also define a function like this, etc.) To go back to the OP, a huge huge skill of learning is successful intuiting those modalities yourself. “I think a video would help me here”; “Here I can just read the docs to understand”
- malauxyeux 3y agoThe author isn't defending debunked "learning styles", which were popular in the 90s and 00s. "Learning styles" usually refers to one of a handful of specific ways of dividing up people. E.g., as preferring visual, aural, reading/writing, or kinesthetic learning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Neil_Fleming's_VAK/VARK_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Neil_Fleming's... The body of the article acknowledges that those "learning styles" have been debunked: > Briefly: the theory was that some people were inherently visual learners, while others were textual learners, among other kinds. This has been proven untrue. The author is defending this idea instead: > I’m talking about learners finding paths that work for them. Fair enough, but recycling "learning styles" in the title is knowingly and needlessly confusing.
- dhimes 3y agoThey actually haven't been debunked IMHO. They've done a handful of tests that tend to show that people remember pictures better than words. They have not tested, as far as I have seen, Active vs Reflective, Inductive vs Deductive (or Sequential vs Global), etc. I don't think it's been studied in a long time because of the influence of the "Learning Styles is Bullshit" gang.
- gopher_space 3y agoThe term 'learning style' has two completely separate meanings depending on whether it's a tool at your disposal or an external requirement. People in the latter group talk about "debunking" a "myth" in the same way that programmers write "agile is bullshit" blogs. It hasn't been seriously studied since the late 90s (imho) because the people working on it were all fairly satisfied with the new tool they'd created for certain struggling teachers in very specific circumstances. From that perspective, potential research questions might boil down to "Is empathizing with a different point of view useful?" or "Exactly how attracted am I to the idea of archetypes?"
- hooverd 3y agoI'm starting to think that debunkers of X are tedious than people who are pro-X. It's so easy to find a study that says X has some flaw and debunk away. There was an oft cited study about plastic bags with some weird methodology that everyone used to smugly proclaim that their single use plastic bags were actually better and people who used reusable bags had been debooonked.
- 7thaccount 3y agoI think I agree with the synopsis. I don't follow the broad research for the debate, but have a pretty good understanding of the way I learn now that I'm in my 30s. I can't listen to lectures at all. Like I just fall asleep. I also have trouble staying awake in meetings where I have to sit still and listen to others talk without being able to engage much. College lectures were torture. It's really hard to grok certain engineering classes and listen when you're spending a ton of energy also taking notes and the professor is moving too fast. I have no idea why they don't just print them ahead of time and pass them out. Who cares if students then don't show up if they can learn the material better? I've found out my best way to learn is to just read the textbook chapters on my own time (no lectures) and then do the homework answering questions or writing papers with the professor available to chat if we need anything (how my master's program works). That works best for me. Audio is just not a good medium for me. I prefer podcast transcripts instead of having to listen to the hosts talk which takes a lot longer. I'm sure others are different.
- totallywrong 3y agoIt's crazy that the prevalent teaching method is sitting for long periods while listening to someone else's, constant-pitch voice. That's literally the best way to fall asleep, as shown in sleep meditation videos and the like. I was a terrible student, could not keep my eyes open in any class, lost interest, never made it to colleague. Then a few years later I did self-paced distant learning and got my degree in no time while working.
- bluGill 3y agoSome people make that monotone work. I have avidly listened to one smooth monotone speaker talk for 45 minutes, while falling asleep in minutes for a different speaker at the same time of day (different day) who seamingly was much more energetic. I have no idea what the difference was, but i've observed it.
- bee_rider 3y agoI’m sure most instructors would, if they had a choice, cut lectures and just have discussion sections/labs. But this would require that everybody read the book and come to the discussion sections ready to engage. Lectures seem more like a failure-mode that has somehow become the standard. Assume the students won’t read, and have a human take the book’s job. Humans are… not great books. It is weird that video-lectures+in person discussion sections didn’t become the standard by, like, 2010 or so.
- vasco 3y agoIf videos are bad then lectures are bad too, checkmate know-it-all professors. Since everyone pulls stuff out of their ass on this topic here's my take: write things down on paper that you want to remember. Memorization is a big part of learning and physically writing with a pen enhances memorization.
- DonsDiscountGas 3y agoThen maybe lectures are bad too. I've never had a technical class that took attendance. You learn by doing, be it problem sets or projects. (Although at least with lectures you might be able to engage with the material more actively and have some back-and-forth with the professor and other students.
- sambapa 3y ago[flagged]
- LorenPechtel 3y agoThere certainly are styles. Tell my wife how to do something, she's going to do poorly. Have her watch it, she'll get it much, much better.
- DonsDiscountGas 3y agoThis seems to be more about working styles than learning styles. Since learning is a type of work, obviously it's still relevant, but it does mean the advice here can be more broadly applied as well.
- karaterobot 3y agoThe issue is that "learning styles" as a phrase is overloaded. If you've read about the debunked theory of learning styles, and you hear someone use that phrase, you think they're talking about that, and they just haven't read the same article (headlines) you did. But, the phrase makes sense when used for something else: simply a description of what methodology an individual uses to study. The best solution would be for people to read critically and determine what the author intends by that phrase. I mean, that would be the solution in theory, but it's never going to happen. So, the more realistic solution is to just never use that phrase unless you're repeating that it's been debunked.
- dhimes 3y agoThis is an underrated comment.
- hohoharvey 3y ago[dead]
- tappio 3y agoLearning takes a lot of effort. There are no shortcuts. To put effort into learning something, you need discipline and/or motivation. Biggest problem with learning for me has always been finding the motivation. When I'm motivated I'm switching between all the mentioned "learning methods". Also, the best suitable method depends on the topic too. And finally... I've always hated lectures, and have had a bad tendency to fall asleep... expect when I'm motivated and the topic is interesting!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LelouBil 3y agoI found out recently that I have a tendance to "want to multitask" even though I know I don't hear a single word spoken to me if I'm attentively reading something. I'll see an interesting educational video on YouTube but i'll wait until I'm eating to play it or else I'll have a feeling of wasting my time. Or in class if I have my computer in front on me i'll go check stuff on my server or do some web searches even if I really like the topic of the class. I don't know if I'm missing motivation or discipline or both. I really enjoy talking and reading about the aformentioned topics, but I can't devote 100% of my attention to lectures/videos, or maybe only in 15-30 mins incréments.
- tappio 3y agoSounds very similar for me. It is pretty annoying sometimes, especially on remote meetings. I think it is some kind of ADHD tendency. My comment came out quite black and white, the reality is of course very nuanced. I personally have hard time focusing. Even if I find the topic interesting I'm constantly switching attention, unless there is a strong immersion, like with development work. My point was just that the "life hacks" of learning are quite useless if you are not interested or disciplined in the first place, and if you are... you unlikely need them. At least my personal experience is that when the topic is interesting and I have motivation, I usually "find a way" to learn more.
- em-bee 3y ago
- 2devnull 3y agoWhenever people bang on about debunking this or that artifact of social science research (artifact of the academy to be more precise), I recall that personality can’t really be established empirically by modern psychological science. People are less willing to go around debunking personality, or say debunking free will. Some people do, especially in the “rationalist community” but generally fewer. Trusting the science is easier when it doesn’t conflict with reality, but there are a minority of people who have no trouble even when it does. In psychology especially, we should heed the adage, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” It’s difficult measuring the behavior of the human mind.
- bloqs 3y agoThe big five are verifiable and accepted
- 2devnull 3y agoTraits are not personality. And factor analysis is arbitrary.
- nordsieck 3y ago> Whenever people bang on about debunking this or that artifact of social science research (artifact of the academy to be more precise), I recall that personality can’t really be established empirically by modern psychological science. Do you mean aside from this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoHow is something like that verifiable?
- ta988 3y agoIf you do like all those pseudo psychologists, always find one category a person they meet fits in. There you go there are only 5 traits. Same thing for horoscopes, you can always fit one description from a sign to someone so you are always right. Except when there is this "how weird i thought you were a gemini what is your ascendant" "ohh that's why." a posteriori analysis can explain anything you want.
- dmvdoug 3y agoI am going to second all of the complaints about the use of “learning styles.” That has a very specific meaning in education. And there is a word for what the article is talking about: metacognition. Pretending that he has debunked a myth just feels clickbaity.
- rramadass 3y agoVeritasium on this topic : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhgwIhB58PA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhgwIhB58PA The most important thing in learning is to actively engage one's Imagination in various ways. Algebraic/Geometric mappings, Multi-level abstractions, Shifting between Abstraction and Concrete Reality, Relationship networks etc. are all needed.
- throwaway167 3y agoHN book recommendation: Bad Education https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Education-Debunking-Myths/dp/033524601X https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Education-Debunking-Myths/dp/0335... The book is split into self-contained chapters, each of which debunk a (often, still) held myth about learning and education. 'Learning styles' is one of these, but others include setting and streaming classes by ability, the effects of 'good' schools. Each chapter is by a different author summarising academically (references) but accessibly a different 'debunk' topic. UK-centric, but 'lessons' global. The main negative is the unescapable need for some of the chapter editors to air political grievances over the past, though these are mainly about sore wounds over party politics not pedagogy and easily identified. A take-away being shoddy science is used a lot to justify pre-held biases and 'common sense'.
- dhimes 3y agoThis sounds like an interesting book. When I looked at the learning style research I found that most "debunking" reviews pointed to a couple of meta-studies by, for example, Pascher, that found no evidence of learning styles. As I looked deeper I saw that most studies were very limited, and mostly compared visual to verbal memory recall efficacy. There were a few that tried reading comprehension, etc, but often at an age of student where memory is not that different from comprehension in testing for it. The other thing that I found was that nobody was testing for learning styles. They determined "Learning Styles" by giving questionnaire about preferences. It seems to me you need to at least develop a possible test for learning styles before you see if there are differences in learning. I may prefer to look at pictures, but I may actually learn more from text. But I do side with Bjork in that teachers focusing on learning styles at this point is a distraction from things we know that help education. I just think more research needs to be done before we dismiss it.
- fn-mote 3y agoThere is no evidence presented in this article. At all. It has no references other than links to articles that show "learning styles" are a myth. This is a problem because there is real scientific evidence showing that people do not have specific learning styles. The ideas that the author proposes center around "do you want to" and "do you like". Don't you get people telling you that they prefer "kinesthetic learning" because they "like it" better? How does this differ? The conversation needs to focus around *what methods are effective for learning* and *what makes them effective*. The rest is fluff, getting ready to be debunked next. I disagree with the comments about "metacognition"... I agree that is critical, but I don't see any sign that this article is addressing that. Metacognition means thinking about what worked and what did not work while you were/are trying to learn. The only sign of that in this article is the one sentence, "Understand what works for you," that refers to choosing one of the wants or likes from the list.
- nedbat 3y agoDoesn't the original sentence cover your concern? "Learn how you learn."
- dhimes 3y agoHere's a quick response as I have to get to a sailboat race. * Most research is limited; most test memory of pictures vs words (pictures win for most). Most educators of higher levels believe that there is more to learning than memory, but this is largely not addressed by the researchers. * Most "learning styles" are established via questionnaire, not actually testing how people learn best * Even the "Learning Styles is BS" crowd is starting to weasel out of the implication of their conclusion that everybody learns the same. They are saying things like "talent" and "context" etc. give differences in how people learn, not learning styles. A distinction without a difference IMHO- with the possible exception that you could argue that you are, for example, verbal for math and visual for history or something (because of context or whatever). * I don't have a dog in the fight. I only want what's best for students, which means to learn how they learn. If they are all the same, so be it (but I would be surprised). * More of my thoughts here: https://studyswami.com/are-learning-styles-bs/ and my conceptual take on how we should measure learning styles if we really want to research them (don't take the actual results too seriously).
- photochemsyn 3y agoSensory Input (Visual, Auditory, Tactile) -> Conceptual Understanding (Mental) -> Practice by Repetition (Mental + Physical). "Learning Styles" thinking was based on the idea that step one was the most important. However, without conceptual understanding, learning devolves to rote learning. Without practice and repetition, long-term in-depth learning is impossible. As far as approaches to learning, by far the best methods involve a fair amount of one-on-one attention. The quickest way to learn something is to have it directly explained to you by another person, with questions allowed. Similarly, the best way to test your own understanding of a subject is to explain it to someone else. Of course, these are the most expensive methods of education, because they require a large investment in people - skilled teachers and other staff, and parking kids in front of Youtube videos is a lot less expensive (see also computer-automated grading of homework assignments and projects). Note that societies that don't place a high value on education are doomed to stagnation at best. P.S. 'Learning styles' can be very important with dyslexia or dyscalculia, e.g. listening to an audiobook while reading along in a text can help the former, as does allowing calculators for the latter for the same reason. Students without these issues can adapt to different presentation styles without much difficulty, and if their school is any good they'll have access to all kinds of supplemental resources (libraries, tutors, access to online databases etc.). P.P.S "Self-taught" is possible, but realistically it takes much more time and effort. Keep in mind though that an incompetent teacher is worse than no teacher at all.
- tetha 3y ago> "Learning Styles" thinking was based on the idea that step one was the most important. However, without conceptual understanding, learning devolves to rote learning. Without practice and repetition, long-term in-depth learning is impossible. This is something that hampered my progress in music and learning instruments until I understood it. Just learning an instrument without looking at theory behind it wasn't really motivating to me after a while. On the other hand, learning theory without having an instrument to use it on doesn't really click. However, putting these two together and in parallel results in a much more motivating and whole situation for me. Suddenly it's very interesting to understand what a song does at a deeper level, and a desire to be good enough with the guitar to do that, or similar things. > As far as approaches to learning, by far the best methods involve a fair amount of one-on-one attention. The quickest way to learn something is to have it directly explained to you by another person, with questions allowed. Similarly, the best way to test your own understanding of a subject is to explain it to someone else. I'm pretty happy how Spectre Academy does it. The main bulk is a bunch of video lectures and they have a discord server for course owners to ask questions to the lecturers as necessary. Though, as the article said, you need to treat these video lectures as... lectures. Get out that notebook and start writing down the important parts.
- armchairhacker 3y agoHow/why are learning styles (as in visual, audio, kinesthetic) "debunked?" I definitely learn better by seeing and reading than hearing things, I've never been able to pay attention in lectures or remember speech but I remember stuff written down. If "learning styles are debunked", what else is going on? I'm sure people don't cleanly fit into one category (e.g. I may learn fine kinethetically as well, and I'm sure some people learn just as well visually as they do auditorally). Maybe everyone is actually a visual/kinethetic learner and teaching via speech just sucks. But psychology is a soft science, and "learning styles are debunked" seems too broad considering many people indeed seem to learn better one way than the other.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jschveibinz 3y agoHere is a study from 2008 that seems to agree with the author’s opinion: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Bjork-2/publication/233600402_Learning_Styles_Concepts_and_Evidence/links/5a0a0928a6fdcc2736dea17b/Learning-Styles-Concepts-and-Evidence.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Bjork-2/publicat... From the abstract: We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice. Thus, limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number. However, given the lack of methodologically sound studies of learning styles, it would be an error to conclude that all possible versions of learning styles have been tested and found wanting; many have simply not been tested at all.
- nemo44x 3y agoThe only way to acquire know-how is by doing. Failure and repetition are the best teachers. People are lazy and entitled and believe they should just be able to passively acquire knowledge without doing work and they blame incompatible “learning styles” for their personal failure. People also confuse “know-about” with “know-how”.
- arp242 3y agoYou should really read the article before going off on a rant that doesn't connect with the content.
- Jensson 3y ago> The only way to acquire know-how is by doing That is verifiably false, people learn by watching all the time. You can argue that doing is the best way to learn, but it definitely isn't the only way to learn.
- nemo44x 3y agoYou don’t gain know-how though. You get acquainted with the concept and gain knowledge by watching or reading a thing. But until you do it and discover it’s intricacies you don’t have know-how. My point being that many people stop at watching/reading/discussing and don’t actually go in and do the thing they want learn. They’ll never really learn it until they can do it.
- Jensson 3y ago> You don’t gain know-how though What is know-how if not knowing how to do something? I've learned how to do stuff from watching and then at a later point doing the thing proving that I had know-how. I knew how to do it before doing it. Edit: Example from when I was a kid: I played a game and struggled with a particular kind of monster, always took damage from it. Me doing it a lot of time didn't lead to knowing how to beat it. Then I watched my brother play it once, after that I never took damage from that monster again. Me watching lead to know-how instantly, doing didn't help, watching helped.
- hzay 3y agoMixing and matching methods is best, I feel. It's like ensembling models. The benefits/inefficiencies of your favorite method get counterbalanced by the benefitd/inefficiencies of your 3rd favorite method. For ex, if you really like deep diving into theory, you can do that for 2 weeks, then maybe a week of practical coding. And vice versa. I feel in this way, you learn at different focal lengths (when you point the lens of your mind at the task at hand), and that helps build a more thorough learning rather than choosing your favorite focal length and staying there.
- kingkongjaffa 3y agoWhile studying engineering I explicitly remember my classmates being weaker and stronger at different topics, and our study group would teach the thing they were strong at. I had a really intuitive grasp of mechanics and dynamics and free body diagrams, others were much better than me at electrical engineering concepts, others again strong in fluid dynamics etc. There’s definitely some variation in the things people are naturally able to grasp based on their past. So initial exposure to a new topic for the same group of people, naturally some will take to it more easily than others. I wouldn’t say it was a cut and dry as “learning styles” but some combination of the material and the way it is presented by the professor makes it digestible to varying degrees by students.
- dhimes 3y agoI don't believe the learning style antagonists would disagree with this. They argue that variations do exist, but they are due to prior knowledge background, talent and IQ (or g or whatever). I certainly see some truth in their argument. If you and I were each to read a text of something that, say, you are familiar with and I am not, then you would probably score higher in the "verbal" learning category and I would have to draw pictures to understand the text. But a big part of the difference is that I would have to learn a lot more than you in order to parse the text- you have a better background. This is easily seen in reading research papers for example, with a novice vs an expert. My argument is that we simply haven't studied it enough to know if there are fundamental differences in the way people learn.
- brhsagain 3y agoThe biggest difference I’ve seen in how people learn is whether they learn things top down or bottom up. I generally prefer to just have the main idea or concept explained directly to me so that’s how I try to teach people things as well. Came as a shock to me when I realized lots of people want to go the other direction, seeing lots of examples and then later arriving at the general concept themselves.
- dhimes 3y agoThere's also an idea that some people like to jump in and try things and others like to think about them first. The learning style antagonist camp would say (if I understand them correctly) that these differences are due to a difference in talent, experience with the subject, or IQ.
- zharknado 3y agoClassic encounter with an improper noun.[0] I think the more substantive critique here is that when people hear “learning styles” they stop thinking and just reject the idea reflexively. To be fair, this is a reasonable defense to a scam that persuaded a lot of people historically and still has a fair bit of traction. A practical response would be to work around the wordings that have baggage, not because you have to for Big Brotherish reason, but because you have empathy for the people you’re speaking to. [0] https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1773806.html https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1773806.html
- dhimes 3y agoGreat point. They haven't really looked at it much outside of memory.