The Myth of Learning Styles
... Lo anterior abre debate sobre el vínculo entre los estilos de aprendizaje y las estrategias didácticas, porque si bien algunos estudios han sugerido ciertas correspondencias, otros han cuestionado la efectividad de adaptar las estrategias didácticas a los estilos de aprendizaje (Pashler et al., 2008;Riener & Willingham, 2010). ...
La presente investigación descriptiva aborda el reconocimiento de estilos de aprendizaje según el modelo VAK (visual-auditivo-kinestésico) en estudiantes de niveles básicos de contabilidad financiera en un programa universitario de Contaduría Pública en Bogotá. Para tal fin, se aplicó el test VAK a una muestra de 99 estudiantes y se realizó un análisis mediante estadísticas descriptivas usando el software SPSS Statistics versión 25. Los principales resultados muestran el predominio de estilos visual y kinestésico.
... The power of anecdotal data and their prevalence over scientific data can indeed be attributed to cognitive bias, most notably the confirmation bias (Pasquinelli, 2012;Riener & Willingham, 2010). In fact, not only are teachers' false beliefs consolidated by anecdotal observations in their daily practice, but teachers are more likely to trust scientific evidence when it confirms their prior beliefs (Schmidt, Rosman, Cramer, Besa, & Merk, 2022; see also Scurich & Shniderman, 2014). ...
Despite considerable progress made in educational neuroscience, neuromyths persist in the teaching profession, hampering translational endeavors. The initial wave of interventions designed to dispel educational neuromyths was predominantly directed at preservice teachers. More recent work in the field, reviewed here, has shifted its focus primarily to in-service teacher professional development interventions. We discuss various interventional approaches, including refutation texts embedded into a brief training in foundational neuroscience, personalized refutation texts, insightful reflections upon science of learning key concepts (e.g., brain plasticity), and immersive experiences within research groups, highlighting their strengths and limitations. The evolving nature of scientific knowledge, the imperative to respect educators' personal and professional sensitivities, as well as challenges posed by conceptual change, are also addressed. This narrative review underscores the need to bring neuromyth investigations into the classroom environment. At the turn of the millennium, major advances in neuro-science fueled expectations for an education grounded in scientific knowledge of the brain (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2002). Access to neuroimaging technology, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, has allowed for the emergence of a mediational field-educational neuroscience-to probe brain structures and functions involved in the acquisition
... Belfi [41] claims that teachers who use diverse teaching methods meet the needs of students, which supports equal opportunities for all students. We are aware that while students may have preferences, matching preferences does not ensure better learning [42]. ...
Concerns about the differences between boys and girls in educational achievement, school careers and educational choices have existed since the last century. Despite ongoing research, we still do not have a complete picture of gender-based differences in education. In particular, there is little comparative research on how teachers and students experience and deal with gender differences in their classrooms. Therefore, this study focuses on teacher and student perspectives on gender differences in the physics classroom of Dutch upper secondary education. The data were collected through questionnaires distributed among physics teachers (N = 72) and students (N = 212). The questionnaires for students and teachers were designed to reveal their perceptions of gender differences in the classroom, focusing on student learning characteristics and teacher–student interactions. Gender differences are reported to a larger extent by teachers than by students, especially in the area of students’ learning characteristics (e.g., boys showing more talent and interest in physics, girls showing more effort and self-regulation) and some in teacher–student interactions (e.g., girls asking teachers more questions). We conclude that concerns about differences between boys and girls are still present and need further research. More work is needed to fully understand the implications of these differences, which are expected to have an important impact on classroom interventions and guidelines for teachers to use in their classrooms.
... Par exemple, si nous sommes plutôt favorables à l'idée des styles d'apprentissage; lorsque quelqu'un nous affirme être plutôt visuel et que cette personne s'avère être également bonne en géographie, nous accepterons volontiers cette affirmation. Nous ne chercherons pas d'informations montrant que cette personne peut tout aussi bien apprendre si l'information lui avait été autrement présentée que visuellement (Riener & Willingham, 2010). ...
L’engouement pour les neurosciences cognitives s’est accompagné de la diffusion de neuromythes. Malgré un grand nombre de publications internationales sur ce sujet, nous avons constaté que la littérature française était en comparaison moins fournie. Pourtant, en raison de leurs potentiels effets négatifs sur les pratiques pédagogiques, c’est un sujet primordial. Nous avons réalisé un travail synthétique en nous appuyant sur plusieurs revues récentes de la littérature sur le sujet. Nos objectifs sont 1) de cerner ce phénomène au regard des publications internationales et de synthétiser les résultats en français ; 2) d’identifier les facteurs de création, de diffusion et de maintien des neuromythes au sein de la communauté éducative ; 3) de proposer des solutions concrètes pour les professionnels de terrain. Des perspectives de recherches sont également discutées.
... Their pre-class learning included multiple formats, such as audiovisual lectures, PowerPoint presentations, and textbook content. Although the myth of learning styles [7] has since been refuted, their motivation seems aligned with the first principle of universal design for learning (UDL), which is having multiple means of representation [8]. What made the flipped modality popular was the movement started by the high-school teacher duo of Bergman and Sams [9], who implemented the flipped modality in a chemistry class. ...
Early childhood education is critical in shaping children's intellectual and motor skills as it provides a solid foundation for cognitive, social, and emotional development, which highly depends on spatial thinking. Haptic feedback can be effectively used for educational and training purposes, particularly in fields such as physics, math, and arts, offering a more interactive learning media and supporting kinesthetic learners by its nature. Herein, different ways of implementing haptic feedback on different educational scenarios from the perspective of technological development and their impact on children's learned skills and outcomes (e.g., their motivation, their analytical or spatial thinking abilities, or fine motor skills) will be examined. This article provides an overview of how haptic feedback has been implemented in different learning scenarios for children. Particularly, it is indicated that haptics can potentially improve early childhood learning outcomes and spatial reasoning skills as it can increase children's interest, participation, performance in educational activities, and analytical ability. The major drawbacks of the current studies, such as variance in participants’ learning challenges and small sample numbers are also highlighted.
L’apprendimento continuo sta emergendo come pratica importante per migliorare la competitività e potenziare le opportunità di lavoro. Un’area specifica di questa tematica è occupata dall’educazione degli adulti, e dalle opportunità di apprendimento personalizzate per ottimizzare l’istruzione di questa peculiare tipologia di discenti. Tale tema è oggi sempre più rilevante e già largamente documentato nella letteratura accademica. Il presente articolo muove da un’analisi approfondita delle ricerche recenti, proponendo l’aggiunta di una quarta caratteristica nell’approccio alla formazione degli adulti, oltre alle tre già codificate a livello internazionale. All’autonomia, all’esperienza e alla rilevanza si propone dunque di aggiungere la personalità dell’individuo, intesa come "filtro" che agisce durante il processo di acquisizione della conoscenza nell’orizzonte del Life Long Learning. Qui si suggerisce che la sua essenziale applicazione non sia stata ancora esaustivamente esplorata. Il tema della personalità viene poi integrato con un concetto che ben si applica agli aspetti pedagogici e didattici dell’istruzione degli adulti: l’attrito cognitivo.
Introduction
It has been shown that mental health education can support positive attitudes of health profession students towards people with mental health challenges, which supports them to provide optimal healthcare to this group. There are many different approaches to designing and delivering mental health education to health profession students. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages, and often mental health education programmes incorporate a multimodal approach in order to reap the benefits of a variety of teaching and learning approaches. The aim of this study is to understand the current landscape of teaching and learning approaches to mental health education for undergraduate health profession students. We will examine the features of successful outcomes for health profession students for:
Learning environment.
Knowledge development and retention.
Confidence.
Motivation.
Preparedness for professional practice.
Methods
For this, a realist synthesis has been chosen in order to review the literature. Realist synthesis lends itself to the review of complex interventions such as mental health education for undergraduate health profession curricula because it seeks to uncover the range of different mechanisms and context configurations that produce different outcomes. Health profession education and education practice, in general, is complex. A patient and public involvement (PPI) group is involved throughout this study and includes undergraduate health profession students, and members of the St John of Gods Hospital Consumers and Carers Council who are involved at every stage of the research. This study will engage with a stakeholder group who will support the refining of the programme theory.
Ethics and dissemination
Ethical approval has been sought and approved by Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland Ethical Committee (REC number: 212622783). We will aim to write up and publish the full synthesis as a journal article. We will also discuss ways of dissemination outside of academia with our PPI group.
A powerful way of improving one's memory for material is to be tested on that material. Tests enhance later retention more than additional study of the material, even when tests are given without feedback. This surpris- ing phenomenon is called the testing effect, and although it has been studied by cognitive psychologists sporadically over the years, today there is a renewed effort to learn why testing is effective and to apply testing in educational settings. In this article, we selectively review laboratory studies that reveal the power of testing in improving re- tention and then turn to studies that demonstrate the basic effects in educational settings. We also consider the related concepts of dynamic testing and formative assess- ment as other means of using tests to improve learning. Finally, we consider some negative consequences of testing that may occur in certain circumstances, though these negative effects are often small and do not cancel out the large positive effects of testing. Frequent testing in the classroom may boost educational achievement at all levels of education. In contemporary educational circles, the concept of testing has a dubious reputation, and many educators believe that testing is overemphasized in today's schools. By ''testing,'' most com- mentators mean using standardized tests to assess students. During the 20th century, the educational testing movement produced numerous assessment devices used throughout edu- cation systems in most countries, from prekindergarten through graduate school. However, in this review, we discuss primarily the kind of testing that occurs in classrooms or that students engage in while studying (self-testing). Some educators argue
The term “learning styles” refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. Proponents of learning-style assessment contend that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures versus speech) and/or what kind of mental activity they find most engaging or congenial (e.g., analysis versus listening), although assessment instruments are extremely diverse. The most common—but not the only—hypothesis about the instructional relevance of learning styles is the meshing hypothesis, according to which instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preferences of the learner (e.g., for a “visual learner,” emphasizing visual presentation of information).
The learning-styles view has acquired great influence within the education field, and is frequently encountered at levels ranging from kindergarten to graduate school. There is a thriving industry devoted to publishing learning-styles tests and guidebooks for teachers, and many organizations offer professional development workshops for teachers and educators built around the concept of learning styles.
The authors of the present review were charged with determining whether these practices are supported by scientific evidence. We concluded that any credible validation of learning-styles-based instruction requires robust documentation of a very particular type of experimental finding with several necessary criteria. First, students must be divided into groups on the basis of their learning styles, and then students from each group must be randomly assigned to receive one of multiple instructional methods. Next, students must then sit for a final test that is the same for all students. Finally, in order to demonstrate that optimal learning requires that students receive instruction tailored to their putative learning style, the experiment must reveal a specific type of interaction between learning style and instructional method: Students with one learning style achieve the best educational outcome when given an instructional method that differs from the instructional method producing the best outcome for students with a different learning style. In other words, the instructional method that proves most effective for students with one learning style is not the most effective method for students with a different learning style.
Our review of the literature disclosed ample evidence that children and adults will, if asked, express preferences about how they prefer information to be presented to them. There is also plentiful evidence arguing that people differ in the degree to which they have some fairly specific aptitudes for different kinds of thinking and for processing different types of information. However, we found virtually no evidence for the interaction pattern mentioned above, which was judged to be a precondition for validating the educational applications of learning styles. Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis.
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. Further research on the use of learning-styles assessment in instruction may in some cases be warranted, but such research needs to be performed appropriately.