Learning styles
It serves as an alternative to Kolb's LSI as it directly asks about common behaviors found in the workplace compared to judging how an individual learns.
Having completed the self-assessment, managers are encouraged to focus on strengthening underutilized styles in order to become better equipped to learn from a wide range of everyday experiences.
[15][16] Psychologist Scott Lilienfeld and colleagues have argued that much use of the VAK model is nothing more than pseudoscience or a psychological urban legend.
[19] The four sensory modalities in Fleming's model are:[20] While the fifth modality isn't considered one of the four learning styles, it covers those who fit equally among two or more areas, or without one frontrunner:[citation needed] Fleming claimed that visual learners have a preference for seeing (visual aids that represent ideas using methods other than words, such as graphs, charts, diagrams, symbols, etc.).
[23] Gregorc argues that his critics have "scientifically-limited views" and that they wrongly repudiate the "mystical elements" of "the spirit" that can only be discerned by a "subtle human instrument".
[28][29][30] In the 1980s, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) formed a task force to study learning styles.
It is a composite of internal and external operations based in neurobiology, personality, and human development and reflected in learner behavior.
"[31]: 141 According to the NASSP task force, styles are hypothetical constructs that help to explain the learning (and teaching) process.
[41] The LSP is a diagnostic tool intended as the basis for comprehensive style assessment with students in the sixth to twelfth grades.
In 2019, the American Association of Anatomists published a study that investigated whether learning styles had any effect on the final outcomes of an anatomy course.
[43] Dunn and Dunn's "contract activity packages" are educational plans that use: a clear statement of the learning need; multisensory resources (auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic); activities through which the newly mastered information can be used creatively; the sharing of creative projects within small groups; at least three small-group techniques; a pre-test, a self-test, and a post-test.
Methods for visual learners include ensuring that students can see words written, using pictures, and drawing timelines for events.
James W. Keefe and John M. Jenkins have incorporated learning style assessment as a basic component in their "personalized instruction" model of schooling.
The cultural components—teacher role, student learning characteristics, and collegial relationships—establish the foundation of personalization and ensure that the school prizes a caring and collaborative environment.
[45][page needed] According to Keefe and Jenkins, cognitive and learning style analysis have a special role in the process of personalizing instruction.
[45][page needed] Some learners respond best in instructional environments based on an analysis of their perceptual and environmental style preferences: most individualized and personalized teaching methods reflect this point of view.
[1]: 122 Educational researchers Eileen Carnell and Caroline Lodge concluded that learning styles are not fixed and that they are dependent on circumstance, purpose and conditions.
According to Susan Greenfield the practice is "nonsense" from a neuroscientific point of view: "Humans have evolved to build a picture of the world through our senses working in unison, exploiting the immense interconnectivity that exists in the brain.
"[48] Similarly, Christine Harrington argued that since all students are multisensory learners, educators should teach research-based general learning skills.
[52] There is evidence of empirical and pedagogical problems related to forcing learning tasks to "correspond to differences in a one-to-one fashion".
[6] Some research has shown that long-term retention can better be achieved under conditions that seem more difficult, and that teaching students only in their preferred learning style is not effective.
[61]: 11 Cautioning against interpreting neuropsychological research as supporting the applicability of learning style theory, John Geake, Professor of Education at the UK's Oxford Brookes University, and a research collaborator with Oxford University's Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, commented in 2005: "We need to take extreme care when moving from the lab to the classroom.
"[62] The work of Daniel T. Willingham, a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist, has argued that there is not enough evidence to support a theory describing the differences in learning styles amongst students.
[63]: 118 He concluded that there are no theories that have these three crucial characteristics, not necessarily implying that cognitive styles don't exist but rather stating that psychologists have been unable to "find them".
As disclosed in the report, the panel found that studies utilizing this essential research design were virtually absent from the learning styles literature.
[3][66][67] Furthermore, the panel noted that, even if the requisite finding were obtained, the benefits would need to be large, and not just statistically significant, before learning style interventions could be recommended as cost-effective.
That is, the cost of evaluating and classifying students by their learning style, and then providing customized instruction would need to be more beneficial than other interventions (e.g., one-on-one tutoring, after school remediation programs, etc.).
[2]: 116–117 As a consequence, the panel concluded, "at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general educational practice.
[35]: 44 In an article that addressed Kolb's work through 2005, Mark K. Smith reviewed some critiques of Kolb's model, and identified six key issues regarding the model:[70] A 2015 review paper[71] examined the studies of learning styles completed after the 2009 APS critique,[2] giving particular attention to studies that used the experimental methods advocated for by Pashler et al.[71] The findings were similar to those of the APS critique: the evidence for learning styles was virtually nonexistent while evidence contradicting it was both more prevalent and used more sound methodology.
[71] Follow-up studies concluded that learning styles had no effect on student retention of material whereas another explanation, dual coding, had a substantial impact on it and held more potential for practical application in the classroom.
