Deductions from theories of learning style

One characteristic of most of the advice offered to practitioners is that it consists of logical deductions from the various theories of learning style rather than conclusions drawn from the findings of empirical research. Such advice tends either to be of a very general nature – for example, Sternberg (1999) urges teachers to use a variety of teaching and assessment methods; or to be rather specific tips for particular types of teacher – for example, Felder (1996, 22) encourages science teachers to ‘use physical analogies and demonstrations to illustrate the magnitudes of calculated quantities’. Another type of detailed advice is offered by advocates of the Dunn and Dunn model, who prescribe not only techniques for imparting information, but also the design of learning environments, including furniture, lighting, temperature, food and drink, sound, etc.

The one implication for practice which is repeated throughout the literature on learning styles is that it is the responsibility of teachers, tutors and managers to adapt their teaching style to accommodate the learning style of their students or staff members. But such an unqualified exhortation is both unhelpful and unrealistic, because it could be interpreted as meaning that the teacher/tutor/manager is obliged to respond appropriately to visual and verbal learners (and perhaps haptic learners also); to inductive and deductive, reflective and active, sequential and global, conceptual and concrete learners; and to those who like working in groups as well as those who prefer learning individually. Despite the strong convictions with which these ideas are promoted, we failed to find a substantial body of empirical evidence that such strategies have been tried and found successful. Advice of this type strikes practitioners as unworkable and so it tends to remain untested.

There has been some focus on the idea that some ‘types’ make more successful teachers or managers, though some of these measures – e.g field independence – tend to be correlated to ability (Tinajero and Paramo 1997) and for others, evidence regarding the connection between the construct (intuition in entrepreneurs) and career advancement is contradictory (Armstrong 2000). Moreover, those theorists who tend to favour the idea that learning styles are fixed rather than flexible should concede that the styles of the teachers may also be resistant to change and that the styles adopted by powerful figures at work may be shaped by social, cultural and political factors which go beyond individual differences.

The topic of teaching styles has its own literature, theorists and controversies, but it is beyond the remit of this review and so will not be explored. It is sufficient here to refer to the myriad interactions between the learning style of the student and the objectives, content, sequence, teaching methods and  social context of the lesson. Merrill (2000) proposed that these more fundamental teaching strategies should take precedence over learning styles, which should then be used to ‘fine-tune’ the teacher’s plans. The metaphor of slightly adjusting an engine to make it run more efficiently seems singularly inappropriate to the current state of knowledge of learning styles. To borrow a metaphor from the Roman poet Horace, has the mountain of research on learning styles gone into labour and produced a ridiculous mouse, or has it brought forth new ideas for a more professional practice based on learning styles? In our opinion, the critics who dismiss all the practical consequences of learning styles research as either trivial or ‘old hat’ are missing opportunities for professional growth and institutional change, but we leave it to the reader to judge whether all the resources and energies which have been invested in learning styles have produced an adequate return.